Today's tennis news as Sabalenka offers to share cash and Djokovic refuses to answer

Aryna Sabalenka offered to share her prize money and ranking points after winning the Miami Open

Here are your tennis headlines for Tuesday, April 1. Sabalenka offers to split prize money Aryna Sabalenka is the WTA Tour’s latest big title champion. The world No. 1 beat Jessica Pegula 7-5 6-2 to be crowned the Miami Open champion. Afterwards, Sabalenka jokingly admitted she would be more than happy to share her cash prize with Pegula as she apologised for winning. “First of all Jess, I'm so sorry, for real. If I could share the trophy with someone, trophy, prize money, points, everything - I would definitely share it with you. I'm sorry for that,” she smiled. “You're an incredible player, you always push me so hard to play my best. You're a great player. Congrats to you and your team on an incredible couple of weeks. I always enjoy playing against you, it's always great battles, great matches, great level of tennis.” Pegula managed to get her revenge. During Sabalenka’s post-match interview with Tennis Channel, the world No. 4 approached the desk and stole her rival’s celebratory margarita, walking off with the drink in hand.

Djokovic refuses to answer burning question Novak Djokovic suffered a shock defeat in the men’s final at the Miami Open, losing to Czech teenager Jakub Mensik. The Serb raised concerns ahead of the championship match when he was spotted with a nasty eye injury. The world No. 5 looked to be struggling in the humidity during Sunday night’s final. And the situation wasn’t helped by a rain delay of more than five hours earlier in the day, which heavily pushed back the match start time. However, Djokovic refused to answer questions about whether the eye injury or the himid conditions affected him. “I really prefer not to talk about - there is quite a few things, but I prefer not to... just congratulate him. That's it. I don't want to sound like I'm giving excuses here for my loss,” he said. Pressed again, the 24-time Major winner added: “As I answered before, I don't want to get into details, but just it is what it is. You know, it's same for both players. You have to accept the circumstances. I tried to make the most out of what I had or what I was facing, but yeah, it was quite different from any other day of the tournament for me.”

Novak Djokovic struggled with the humidity and had a swollen eye during the Miami Open final

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Raducanu’s ranking jump Emma Raducanu has re-entered the world’s top 50 for the first time since 2022 after her incredible run to the Miami Open quarter-final. When the rankings updated on Monday, she rose to No. 48 in the world. The 22-year-old is next expected to compete in Britain’s Billie Jean King Cup qualifier tie from April 10 to 12. The British squad will face Germany and the Netherlands on Dutch soil. Raducanu has also entered the WTA 250 clay event in Reoun the following week.

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