Brazilian soccer star Neymar Jr. made a surprise appearance during Elena Rybakina and Jasmine Paolini’s contest at the 2024 WTA Finals on November 2. Neymar did the coin toss for the match and posed for a photograph with the duo ahead of the action.
Neymar is currently playing for the Saudi soccer club Al-Hilal in the Saudi Pro League. The Brazilian was spotted at the Six King Slam exhibition in Riyadh a few weeks ago as he met with Carlos Alcaraz. He also received a special racket as a gift from Rafael Nadal.
Neymar continued his love affair with tennis and showed up at the King Saud University Indoor Arena to watch Rybakina and Paolini’s contest at the year-end championships on the first day of the competition. He took part in the pre-match proceedings.
Paolini began the match on the front foot, breaking Rybakina to go 4-2 up. The lead didn’t last long as the Italian was broken back straight away. The set went into a tiebreaker, and Paolini took the advantage with a gritty performance. Paolini switched gears in the second set, and a break of Rybakina’s serve in the seventh game was enough for her to win the match 7-6 (5), 6-4.
With her triumph over the Kazakh, 28-year-old Jasmine Paolini became the oldest player to notch a maiden win at the WTA Finals since 29-year-old Li Na at the year-end championships in 2011. After the match, Elena Rybakina took a few positives from her day on the court and joked that while she could not emerge triumphant, she at least got a chance to meet Neymar.
Taking to her Instagram stories, she posted a picture of herself and Paolini with the soccer player and wrote,
Elena Rybakina will now face Zheng Qinwen in her second group stage match at the 2024 WTA Finals on November 4. After losing to Paolini, Rybakina’s chances of qualifying for the knockout stage hang in the balance. Zheng also lost her opening match in the tournament against top seed Aryna Sabalenka, making her match against the Kazakh a virtual eliminator.
Elena Rybakina and Zheng Qinwen have faced each other twice on the tour before. The former World No. 3 defeated the Olympic gold medalist in straight sets in the third round of the 2022 Wimbledon Championships and repeated the result in the first round of the 2023 China Open.
The Kazakh qualified for the WTA Finals for the second consecutive year after winning three WTA 500 titles and runner-up finishes at two WTA 1000s. Meanwhile, Zheng reached her maiden WTA Finals on the back of titles at WTA 250 in Palermo and WTA 500 in Tokyo. She also reached the finals at the Australian and WTA 1000 Wuhan Open.