Jannik Sinner made tennis icon 'sick to my stomach' over 2024 prize money

Former champion Andy Roddick is one person not overly enthused about Saudi Arabia's influence on professional tennis. In fact, Roddick has delivered a scathing assessment of this month's Six Kings Slam exhibition event, which .

That was after overcame in the third place play-off, potentially the last-ever meeting between the two all-time greats.

But while the tournament wasn't worth any ranking points to the four players involved, it did break records when it came to prize money.

World No.1 received £4.6million for his eventual victory, the highest ever amount handed to a player for a tennis tournament win. In contrast, despite once being ranked the world's best player and also reaching three finals, Roddick's whole career earnings amounted to just under £16million.

And in an episode of the podcast, the 42-year-old was sarcastic when asked if Sinner's prize fund bothers him. "It definitely doesn't make me sick to my stomach that he made more than 25 per cent of my career prize money in three days of exhibition tennis," he joked.

The American also claimed the tournament failed to capture his imagination. "In all seriousness, I never begrudge anyone their choices," he continued. "Listen, someone's going to pay you that amount of money and you have to go do awkward dancing.

"The whole thing looked completely unnatural. It just looked weird. I had no interest in it. Even the Novak and Rafa thing, I don't know, it felt fine, felt like an exhibition but without the charm of a Laver Cup where you're seeing the interactions between players and the legends get brought back."

The Saudi influence on world sport has grown immensely in the past three years, and Roddick begrudgingly accepted that players will continue to head to the Middle East for one-off events. "For better or worse we're gonna see more of these types of things, these exhibitions with outsized budgets," he added.

"It's easier to pay Sinner $6m (£4.6m) when you're not responsible for 122 other players at a given event, plus doubles, plus X, Y and Z. It's one court, it's not a million courts, it's no expenses and it's a marketing budget for a government."

The ATP Rankings are currently sponsored by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), while the NextGen ATP Finals will take place in Jeddah in December. Nadal also now serves as an ambassador to the Saudi Tennis Federation.

Sinner, 23, has now made more than £9.2m from his 2024 season alone, having triumphed at both the and . That sum could be considerably boosted further if the Italian prevails at the on home soil next month.