And so, the boy wonder did it. The happy Sunday for the Italians came at the coffee hour, after lunch, from Melbourne where Jannik Sinner won the Australian Open by beating Russian Daniil Medvedev. In the most beautiful, most agonizing, most deliberated way. The score speaks for itself: 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. He came back from two sets in which his opponent had dominated, armed with the experience of five other finals like these on his record of achievements. He did not get demoralized, he swept aside frustration, and clawed his way into the match with his bare hands. Making it his own. It is a success that forces reporters to update tennis history, with the certainty, however, that so many more pages are yet to be written.
“He’s unstoppable,” Aussie idol Nick Kirgyos commented on TV hot off the press. It’s possible that this is indeed the case. The tournament being played down under, on the other side of the world, is the first of the four slam events. For the uninitiated, the other three are Roland Garros in Paris, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open in New York. Sinner is the 22-year-old born in Sesto Pusteria, a village of 1860 souls in the autonomous province of Bolzano. A Slam tournament is a bit like the Holy Grail: everyone dreams of it, very few manage to grab it. The last Italian to succeed was Adriano Panatta in 1976 at the French championships. Almost half a century ago, another era and another world.
Panatta was a clay court star: boyishly handsome, photogenic, hair falling coyly over his forehead; a woman chaser and pursued in turn by them, imaginative, artistic. When he hit the ball there was a pof, pof, pof in the air that was fluidity and smoothness. When Sinner’s ball hits his beloved hard surface, the sound coming off the strings is an impressive toc for power, energy and precision. Experts recognize it instantly: it is the mark of the world class player. Yet Jannik is a slight 6’2″, 176-pounder who has only recently put on muscle and stamina, indispensable gifts in today’s superfast game. The rest was already there in a big way, because he was destined for success.
He loved skiing (it’s still his second favorite sport) and excelled in competitions on his mountains, but someone who saw far ahead diverted him-with his full consent-to a tennis court. At the age of twelve he left for Bordighera where there is the school of Riccardo Piatti, trainer of potential champions, and there the adventure began. Away from his family, the places of his heart and of his friends, with one fixed idea: to grow in the game and in life. He succeeded perfectly in both.
“It was not easy,” he recounts, “neither for me nor for my family. Simple people who run a hut in Fiscalina Valley: dad is a cook, mom is a waitress in the dining room”. And there is also his adopted brother named Mark, born in Russia, three years older than Jannik and eleven inches shorter in height. None of them were in Melbourne today, because their presence in the box is a pleasant exception: there’s work to be done at home, and that freckle-faced kid can handle himself just fine. Sinner has a maturity that astounds; he always has had. Just two years ago in Australia, eliminated by the Greek Tsitsipas in the quarterfinals–an enviable result in any case–he decided to change everything. He said goodbye to coach and surrogate father Piatti, by creating a new team that, step by step, has led him to today’s triumph: coach Simone Vagnozzi who studies tactics and technical aspects, supervisor Darren Cahill who analyzes every match played and to be played, athletic trainer Umberto Ferrara, and physiotherapist Matteo Naldi who takes care of his delicate physique. Cahill, former coach of the legendary Andre Agassi, says of Sinner, “Jannick has work ethic, willingness to learn, desire, purpose. He has all that and also has a great sense of humor that he shows on and off the court. A delightful guy who loves to be with company and spends time having fun with the team. Plus he has a fantastic tennis IQ.”
And not just for tennis, it should be mentioned. Sinner is a brainiac who would look good as an alumnus at Yale, MIT in Boston or the Normale in Pisa. He learns information on the fly, incubates it and processes it in his head–like a computer to put it into practice on the court. In this sense he seems cold and robotic, something that he is not at all: once the stress of competition is over, he breaks out his radiant smile and thinks of those around him and the very many who follow him from afar. He leaves no one behind, helpful and amiable on any occasion. A distinctive personality, a magnificent character: he is a perfect young man who became a man very early, without losing the taste for fun appropriate for his age. So today he is the most famous Italian athlete in the world. And also the most beloved, crossing generations, with the clean-cut face and polite ways of the nice kid that captivates. Our boy. During the award ceremony, he thanked his parents, “I wish all children could have a family like mine, which left me free to choose my path.” Bravissimo in all circumstances, indeed.
His unruly red hair, barely contained by the eternal cap, is now more famous than Rita Hayworth’s red mane: they don’t call him Carrot by accident, affectionately. For if it were not for the fact that Jannik is the present and future of supersonic jet tennis, he would look like a player from another era. One who has come from the era of the white-gloved immortals: elegant and loyal, reserved and likeable, fair with rivals who respect him for his skill and humility. It makes sense that such a phenomenon would inevitably attract sponsors. Nike set its sights on him in the spring of 2022, announcing a 10-year deal with the South Tyrolean, who collects 15 million a season from the clothing company. Rolex and Head (racquet supplier), historic brands who covet the tennis greats, also made official a contract for huge sums. Italian companies weren’t far behind: from Gucci (but the designer duffel bag suddenly disappeared from the court) to Lavazza, from Intesa Sanpaolo to Panini editions and Pigna school notebooks, from Fastweb to Alfa Romeo. One partnership after another that earns the national player a total of more than twenty million annually, added to the sums for winning the tournaments: the Australian, for example, is worth two million euros. His popularity is rocketing – the social media that he also uses sparingly proves it – but there is no danger of him getting a big head, kept grounded as he is by the manager who has always been a trusted friend.
On Thursday he will be received at the Quirinale by President Mattarella along with the Davis Cup team, the historic salad bowl that without Jannik Italy would not have won. In short, the real problem is finding any fault in Sinner, assuming that he has any: “You are not human,” the defeated Cossack Bublik in Miami told him at the end of the match. He has a major public engagement ahead of him, however, which will be the litmus test in this regard: Amadeus is making a big deal out of having him as the guest of honor at Sanremo and having him sing on the Ariston stage. Shall we bet that he will at least make a splash there?
