Winner of the Australian Open at the beginning of the year and having become world number one, Jannik Sinner no longer had to demonstrate his tennis prowess. By winning the US Open on Sunday, the 23-year-old Italian has however proven how strong he is psychologically.
The conditions for his success were indeed far from being met since the International Agency for Tennis Integrity (Itia) had revealed five days before the start of the tournament that Sinner had tested positive twice for an anabolic in March, but that he was cleared due to the extremely low level of banned product (clostebol) found in his urine which corroborated his line of defense, namely contamination.
It was therefore with great concern that the Italian appeared in New York and with great concern that he answered questions from the media and on the court.
His game suffered throughout the competition as he never managed to play at his best level, the one that allowed him to win in Melbourne in January after coming back from two sets behind in the final against Daniil Medvedev.
He lost the first set of his first match, then struggled again in his second match, but gradually he gained momentum, beating Medvedev once again, this time in the quarter-finals, before dominating American Taylor Fritz in the final.
– “Without too many expectations” –
“I took it one day at a time, without too many expectations. I tried to find my game, my rhythm. Every day, I tried to regain confidence,” he says.
Luckily for him, Sinner enjoys playing under pressure not only because he “trains for it,” but also because before playing tennis, he skied competitively.
“In skiing, you go down a slope for 90 seconds and if you make a mistake, it’s over,” he explains, emphasizing that in comparison, “in tennis, you can play for two hours, make a lot of mistakes and still win the match.” As long as you have a strong mind.
He himself took time to devote himself to tennis.
Born in the Italian Tyrol, he only gave up skis for snowshoes as a teenager. However, he received his first snowshoe from his father when he was only three years old.
It was at the age of thirteen that he went down to the Ligurian coast to join the academy of Ricardo Piatti, a renowned Italian tennis trainer who notably accompanied Novak Djokovic.
Skiing “was dangerous. A bad fall can ruin an entire season,” he noted a few years ago, emphasizing that one advantage of tennis was being able to play it “all year round.”
But “the most important thing is that in tennis, you see your opponent. You know if you are ahead in the score, or behind, if you are going to have to change something or not,” he explained.
– Express ascent –
So here is the lanky Italian (1.88m and 76kg), recognizable from afar with his red hair hidden under a cap when he plays, on the ATP circuit from 2018.
As a good mountaineer, it didn’t take him long to climb the world hierarchy.
In 2019, in his first almost complete season on the circuit, he climbed more than 450 places, up to the top 80 (78th). In 2020 he was the best player under twenty, in 2021 he entered the Top 10, he finished 2023 in fourth place and in June 2024 became the first Italian world No. 1.
To do this, he relies on a powerful and precise strike on both the forehand and backhand and a very effective defense.
“The sound of his ball strike, it’s something, isn’t it?” appreciates Australian coach Darren Cahill, who joined his team in the summer of 2022.
“It comes from his timing and his hand speed,” he explains. “A lot of great champions have a characteristic hitting sound. Agassi, it gave the impression of being stronger than everyone. Rafa (Nadal), it’s exactly the same thing. (…) Jannik has that, without a doubt.”
Between his self-effacing nature and his robotic tennis, he’s not the most exciting player to watch. But right now, he’s the most effective.
In 2023, he had amassed 64 victories over the season, more than any other player. This year, he is still ahead of everyone on hard courts with 35 victories and six titles including the two Majors at the start and end of the season. He is forever the first Italian to have won the Australian Open and the US Open.
ig/chc
