Winner of the 2024 Australian Open, Jannik Sinner has had astonishing results in another discipline.
At only 22 years old, Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner is making a name for himself. If purists have known the player for several years and see constant progression since his victory at the Masters Next Gen in 2019 (a tournament designed for promising young people on the ATP circuit), confirmation is always delicate in high-level sport, consistency even more.
After a thunderous end to 2023, the start of 2024 was eagerly awaited and Jannik Sinner responded. Before his first Grand Slam final on Sunday January 28, the Italian impressed throughout the Australian Open, paying the scalp of a certain Novak Djokovic in the semi-final, undefeated since his defeat in 2018. In the final, despite a complicated and even very complicated start against Daniil Medvedev (led two sets to nothing), the Italian overturned everything in his path, showing extraordinary mentality to finally win in five sets and more than 4 hours game.
But Jannik Sinner is not an athlete like the others and was not necessarily predestined for tennis. It was on skis that young Jannik began his career. A native of San Candido, in the Dolomites, a favorable terrain for skiers, was Italian slalom champion among juniors in 2008, then national vice-champion in 2012 before truncating his skis with a snowshoe at the age of 7 years.
What cause regrets for the Italian? Not really, as the main person explains. “I was better at skiing than at tennis, but I have no regrets,” assured Jannik Sinner a few years ago. “I felt that the others were more powerful, he confided to the ATP in 2022. I also fell heavily twice and I never felt comfortable again. During certain falls , I kept sliding and I couldn’t stop. Sometimes you’re scared because you don’t know where you’re going to end up.”
“In skiing, you go downhill for 1?30? and if you make a mistake, you are dead, you can no longer win, analyzes the Italian. In tennis, you can make a mistake and still play for two hours and half.” An opinion shared by his first coach, Andreas Schönegger, close to the Sinner family: “It was too short a challenge which did not bring him satisfaction. Jannik loves competition and tennis itself was a challenge.”
An analysis that perhaps even resembles a prophecy for the young Italian who won his first Grand Slam title after making several errors at the start of the match, letting his opponent gain confidence to finally win 2h30 later