Ahead of Madison Square Garden exhibition, Alcaraz, Navarro, Pegula and Shelton have whirlwind New York tour

This was one interesting Uber Eats order. American Sloane Stephens has confessed the details behind the viral mid-match meal that grabbed headlines during her third-round defeat to Anna Kalinskaya at the Australian Open.

With Stephens trailing 5-0 in the second set to the world No. 75 (Stephens had won the first in a marathon tiebreak), two containers of sushi and two smoothies were delivered to her by a ball person on the ensuing changeover.

As it turned out, the takeout was just a matter of necessity after a marathon opening set that lasted more than an hour in length. (The match on the whole last 2 hours and 45 minutes, which clocked in as one of the Top 10 longest of the tournament to date.)

"We had a long first set, I was hungry and this is all my team could find," the 2017 US Open champion confessed Sunday on X, the platform formerly called Twitter.

Advertising

We had a long first set, I was hungry and this is all my team could find 😩😩 https://t.co/nkX0a9tYOx
— sloanestephens (@SloaneStephens) January 21, 2024

Stephens' meal break—dubbed "one of the all-time sports power snacks" by tennis content creator Bastien Fachan—was met with amused reactions by many fans on social media, including 2022 Australian Open finalist Jennifer Brady. (Though not so much by chair umpire Aline Rocha of Brazil, who repeatedly engaged Stephens on how much time she was taking between points in the match.)

"Not all of us can eat sushi during a match," Stephens' fellow American Brady quipped in response to her confession, hashtagging her post with #BuiltDifferent.

Unfortunately for the 2017 US Open champion, it did little to help her cause in the final set, though she did have a 3-1 lead early on. Kalinskaya won the match, 6-7(8), 6-1, 6-4, to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time.

But after winning back-to-back matches for the first time since last August, which incuded a second-round upset of No. 14 seed Daria Kasatkina, Stephens said that the loss wouldn't dampen her spirits too much. The 30-year-old hadn't won a match at the Australian Open since 2019 prior to this year's effort.

"I don’t know about you guys but I feel like we’re out the gates and we hit the track running in 2024," she later posted. "I’m miles ahead of where I was this time last year and I’m pumped and excited to keep the energy going. Thank you all so much for the support and it’s only going to get better!"