- Anna Kalinskaya has outed a top-20 male tennis star who messaged her 10 times begging for a date – only to be rejected.
The Russian, who is currently ranked 32nd in the world, was previously one half of the sport’s biggest power couple.
Indeed, Kalinskaya and world No 1 Jannik Sinnerput their romance on public display almost exactly a year ago as they shared a kiss after the Italian’s US Open victory.
Their relationship was ultimately short-lived, with the pair taking a break just a few short months later to ‘better understand their future’. Sinner later confirmed that he was single while speaking to reporters in Rome.
But he’s seemingly far from the only player on the ATP Tour to have taken a fancy to Kalinskaya, who revealed in an interview this week that ‘a couple’ of stars have asked her on date.
When asked by former tennis player Anna Chakvetadze on the First&Red podcast whether or not she’s received advances from male stars, Kalinskaya replied: ‘Tennis players – more often before.
‘Now I’m older, I don’t know, for some there’s no chance! No need to write.
‘Someone wrote like 10 times and then gave up. I’ll say who it is now, Holger Rune. He writes to everyone. He thinks too much of himself.
‘Maybe he’s just desperate, but he’s not the only one [to have messaged me].’
Rune however soon hit back at Kalinskaya’s revelation with a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, claiming she misunderstood his messages.
The 22-year-old Dane wrote: ‘Ha ha ha. We might have cultural differences that make Anna read a comment on a story as an invitation to a date.
‘If I want to go for a date, I ask for a date. Don’t worry’
Fiery Australian Nick Kyrgios is another of the tour professionals to have tried his luck with Kalinskaya, perhaps more successfully than Rune.
Kyrgios and the Russian, then aged 21, enjoyed a brief relationship which began in 2020. They were often seen supporting each other at matches and even attended an NBA game together.
However they’d called time on their fleeting romance before the year was up, with Kalinskaya unapologetically describing him as a ‘bad person’ on an Instagram Live.
‘You are not a bad boy, you are simply a bad person,’ she explained.
It wasn’t until three years later that she became connected to Sinner as the pair sparked dating rumors in April 2024.
Sinner later confirmed that such speculation was true at the French Open, saying: ‘I’m with Anna, yes, but we keep everything confidential. You know my confidentiality, I won’t say more.’
Their time together was once more short-lived. After rumors of a split began circulating a few months on, a cold set of quotes from Sinner later suggested their romance was well and truly on the rocks.
‘Having a girlfriend is something that makes you feel good or makes you feel bad. I want it to be something that seems very natural, that enters my life normally,’ he is quoted as saying by II Messagero, citing sources from Kalinskaya’s Russian homeland.
