Early Life
Jannik Sinner was born on August 16th, 2001 in San Candido, Italy. Sinner first played tennis at the age of three, which instantly sparked an interest in him. Sinner played tennis all throughout his childhood; however, he never took it very seriously. Jannik saw tennis as more of a hobby than a future; rather, he was deeply interested in skiing. Being from a big skiing city in Italy, Sinner became a natural, even winning competitive tournaments. In fact, Jannik became national champion from ages 8-12, creating a name for himself within the world of skiing. However, as Sinner continually went up the ranks and built a strong reputation for himself, his competition got much harder, which led to more loss than he was typically accustomed with. These sudden setbacks discouraged Sinner, leading him to pick up tennis again and redirect his focuses. When Sinner was around 12-13, he began to devote all his time to tennis, quickly improving as a result of his natural athleticism. Sinner moved to Bordighera on the Italian Riviera to train with veteran coach Riccardo Piatti.
Later in his life, Sinner mentioned in a few interviews that he stayed away from playing tournaments during this developmental time in his tennis career. He believed that it was more important to master certain skills and techniques before putting them on display to the world. This proved vital, as after two years of hard training, Jannik began showing up at junior tournaments, destroying opponents wherever he went. People were surprised and confused, as they had never seen this kid before, yet here he was, hitting people off the court. This was the beginning of a highly successful and fruitful career.
Navigating The Tennis World
When Sinner turned 14 years old, he began to participate in junior tournaments within Europe. At first, his success was limited. Sinner easily got restless and sometimes lost faith in himself, regretting his decision of dropping skiing and focusing on tennis. However, these setbacks proved highly important in his later success. Sinner’s coach, Riccardo Piatti, knew that Sinner had an extremely rare natural talent as a tennis player. Because of this, he committed most of his time to developing Sinner as a player, regardless of early performance. As the months of training went by, Sinner’s improvement increased radically, beginning to perform at a competitive level in elite tournaments. At age 15, Sinner started to play ITF’s (International Tennis Federation Tournaments), which are some of the most competitive tournaments that international 18 and under tennis players can partake in. Being a much more competitive circuit, once again, Jannik didn’t see immediate results. Nonetheless, he stuck with it, and while making minimal progress, progress was being made, and results were reflective of that.
At this point in time, Jannik Sinner began competing with players such as Carlos Alcaraz and Alexander Zverev, both of whom are now top 10 ATP players alongside Sinner. Sinner won his first ATP Challenger title in Bergamo in February 2019 at the age of 17 years and 6 months, despite entering the tournament with no match wins at the Challenger level. He became the first person born in 2001 to reach a Challenger final, and the youngest Italian to win a Challenger title in history. This was just the beginning for Sinner, as later that year he went on to win the Next-gen finals, placing him in the top 100 in the world. In just a few years, Jannik Sinner had gone from an elite small town skier to being a top 100 international tennis player on the pro circuit.
2024 Australian Open
After a strong 2023 season (reached semi-finals of Wimbledon, won ATP 1000 in Toronto, led Italy to winning the Davis Cup title), Sinner started 2024 off by winning his first grand slam: The Australian Open. In the first round, Sinner handily dealt with the Dutchman, Botic van de Zandschulp (6-4, 7-5, 6-3). In the second round, Sinner plowed through Argentinian Sebastian Baez (6-0, 6-1, 6-3) in only 1 hour and 52 minutes. In the third round, winning easily yet again, Sinner beat Jesper De Jong (6-2, 6-2, 6-2) even quicker than his previous win, in 1 hour and 42 minutes. Next, in the fourth round, Sinner repeated his amazing straight set streak by beating the world number 17, Karen Khachanov (6-4, 7-5, 6-3). This win placed Sinner in the quarter finals against the world number 5, Andrey Rublev. A match that should’ve been much more competitive than it was, Sinner continued his streak of winning in straight sets, beating Rublev (6-4, 7-6(5), 6-3). This win surprised many people and attracted much attention towards Sinner’s performance so far in the tournament.
At this point in time, Sinner had secured his place in the semi-finals against the world number 1 and 24 time grand slam champion, Novak Djokovic. Everyone keeping up with the tournament thought that this would be the end of Sinner’s amazing performance thus far. However, Sinner marked his place in history, handling one of the best players of all time, 6-1, 6-2, 6-7(6), 6-3. This amazing win placed the young Italian in the finals versus the young Russian, Daniil Medvedev. Daniil had also performed extremely well, beating players such as Felix Auger-Aliassime, Hubert Hurkacz, and Alexander Zverev. In a five set thriller, Sinner overcame Medvedev after being two sets down, winning 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3. After only losing three sets the entire tournament, Jannik Sinner had finally earned his spot as a grand slam champion. In his post match interview, Sinner stated that, “It’s a great moment for me and my team, but we also know that we have to improve if we want to have another chance at holding the big trophy again.”
The Future
Given his significant jumps of improvement, it will be interesting to see how the rest of Sinner’s career will play out. Many people believe that he’s a “one-hit wonder,” but I beg to differ; I can easily see the young Italian winning many more grand slams, and even potentially reaching the world number one ranking. His full potential is yet to be shown, as he vastly improves every tournament. With three grand slams left in the 2024 season, I for one have high hopes for Sinner, and I hope to see him lift that “big trophy” again. Buona fortuna Jannik!
