Dominika Cibulkova Identifies Tennis Balls By Smell

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We’re going to be talking tennis a bit more than usual on the Ball Report over the next little bit, as it’s Wimbledon season, but this clip had to go to the top of the stack. Slovakian tennis star Dominika Cibulkova washed out in the quarterfinals, which must have been disappointing for her, but a BBC reporter cornered her and got her to show off her bizarre talent on camera - she can smell tennis balls and correctly identify which Grand Slam tournament they’re from.

The reporter blindfolded Cibulkova and presented her with a quartet of balls to identify and she nailed them all, using only her nose. The balls, from Wimbledon, the French Open, the Australian Open and the US Open, all look the same to laymen like us, but apparently have very different odors. If you told us that 2016 would feature a hot female athlete sniffing balls on television, we would never have believed you, but here we are.

Dominika Cibulkova’s previous notoriety on the tennis court came from her aggressive playstyle, as well as being the first female Slovakian player to get to the championship round of a Grand Slam. We’re hoping that her short detour into ball-huffing won’t detract from those impressive accomplishments.