by Tennis has a new sensation. His fans dress up like carrots and he could easily have achieved fame on an Alpine piste. But who exactly is Jannik Sinner? Apart from the man who ended Novak Djokovic’s reign in Melbourne after six unbeaten years, that is.
The first answer – as evidenced by the court interview that followed Friday’s shocking result – is that Sinner is a very un-Italian Italian.
Think of his colleagues, and you will usually come across Adriano Panatta, Matteo Berrettini or Fabio Fognini: all very dark, handsome and energetic. Sin is so pale that it probably needs to wear factor 50 on a cloudy English day. He has a shock of bright red hair – hence the carrot characters – and generally defends Fido Dido, the 1980s cartoon character.
Like Andreas Seppi – another Italian anomaly who once beat Roger Federer at this event – your sinner is from South Tyrone: a German-speaking state in the north-east of Italy that feels it would make more sense as part of Austria.
Up to the age of 12, Sinner was a serious skiing prospect who idolized the American downhill champion Bode Miller and once finished second in a national giant slalom race for juniors. His amazing balance is reminiscent of Djokovic, who grew up in the Serbian mountain resort of Kopaonik and is also a talented skier.
Sinner was 13 when he left his hometown of Innichen – otherwise known as San Candido – to train with legendary development coach Riccardo Piatti on the Italian Riviera.
It can’t have been an easy decision, but it certainly paid off. As Sinner explained: “Skiing is only a minute and a half down the hill. If you make one mistake, it’s all over. In tennis you can make some mistakes but still win. That’s why I chose tennis.”
At 22, Sinner is still underrated in interviews, especially compared to flamboyant peers like Fognini. After his impressive performance against Djokovic on Friday, one might expect him to be bubbling over with excitement. Instead, he spoke to on-court interviewer Jim Courier in a flat monotone reminiscent of a young Andy Murray.
As with Murray, however, there is a sense of humor under that crooning voice. A few hours after Sinner’s win, his two-man coaching staff dropped into the interview room to discuss his recent surge. A sinner himself poked his head around the door asking “How is it to coach Jannik?”
When later questioned about Sinner’s geographical origins, his Italian coach Simone Vagnozzi replied: “Definitely it’s another part of Italy. I think this part of Italy is really serious. They don’t talk that much. And from the outside you may see this with Jannik, but in reality he is a man who wants to joke, he always wants to have a smile.
“He’s very serious on the court in practice,” Vagnozzi added, “and maybe this is the German part of him. But it’s also very funny, and this is a more Italian part.”
And so until Sunday’s final. We’re about to witness a tennis rarity: a new name inscribed on the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup. The last time this happened was in 2014, when Stan Wawrinka’s gate beat the Djokovic/Federer/Nadal trio that otherwise dates back to 2005.
On Sunday, Sinner’s opponent will be Daniil Medvedev, 27-year-old, the eccentric Russian who already has five major finals. Unfortunately for him, three of these came against Djokovic and two against Nadal, so his conversion rate is very low. But at least he managed to hit in and seize his individual grand-slam title at the 2022 US Open, when an exhausted Djokovic hit an emotional wall.
Despite the huge experience gap – Sinner has never been this far before – most punters are citing Sinner as the favourite. He just has more firepower than the metric Medvedev. And he applied it at the end of last season, which he turned into a terrible one before by beating Medvedev three times in six weeks. The defining image of a 100mph forehand, beaten down the line by a rampaging sinner, had its laconic Australian coach Darren Cahill chuckling in disbelief.
Over the past year, Cahill and Vagnozzi have introduced more variety to Sinner’s game, reshaping his serve. One area that didn’t need tinkering was his thunderous power off the ground. “The sound of the ball when he hits it, it’s amazing, isn’t it?” said Cahill, who has already worked with three world No1s in Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi and Simona Halep.
“Agassi hits the ball like that,” Cahill added. “Rafa was exactly the same. Roger, when he hit a forehand, you could only hear the sound of it. And Novak, when he hits forehand and backhand, it’s like a thud. All those players have a different sound when they hit the ball, and Jannik certainly has that too.”
With Djokovic approaching his 37th birthday, Sinner and 20-year-old Spanish prodigy Carlos Alcaraz are about to inherit the world of tennis. Where Alcaraz is a magician with a Latin flair, Sinner is cold about his machine-tool game.
Their competition – which includes an absolute barn burner at the 2022 US Open – has been fairly even so far, with Sinner leading by four wins to three. But he still trails in the grand slam title stakes, two to zero. Success against Medvedev would halve the deficit.
