Jannik Sinner

Jannik Sinner was born 16 August 2001 to Hanspeter and Siglinde Sinner in Innichen in the German-speaking autonomous province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. He grew up in the town of Sexten on the Austrian border, where his father and mother work as a chef and a waitress at a ski lodge.[2] He has a brother named Marc.[1] Sinner began both skiing and playing tennis at age three. He was one of Italy's top junior skiers from eight to twelve years old, winning a national championship in giant slalom at age eight and earning a national runner-up at age twelve.[3][4][5] While training in skiing, Sinner gave up tennis for a year at age seven before his father pushed him to return to the sport.[6] When he resumed playing, he began working with his first regular coach Heribert Mayr.[7] Nonetheless, tennis was still only his third priority behind skiing and football.[8][9]

At age thirteen, Sinner decided to give up skiing and football in favor of tennis because he preferred to compete directly against an opponent and to have more margin of error over the course of an entire match unlike in a skiing race, and preferred to be an individual sport where he could make decisions unlike on a football team.[9] He also decided to leave his family and move to Bordighera on the Italian Riviera to train at the Piatti Tennis Centre under Riccardo Piatti and Massimo Sartori, a decision which his parents supported.[1][4][6] At the centre, Sinner lived with the family of Luka Cvjetkovic, one of his coaches.[10] Before Sinner began training in tennis full-time with Piatti, he had only been playing twice a week.[8]

Sinner began playing on the ITF Junior Circuit in 2016. Despite having limited success as a junior, he moved mainly to the professional tour following the end of 2017. He never played the main draw of any high-level Grade 1 events in singles, and the only higher-level Grade A tournament he entered was the Trofeo Bonfiglio. He followed up an opening round loss at Italy's Grade A tournament in 2017 with a quarterfinal in 2018. That was the only junior event he played in 2018. He never played any of the junior Grand Slam tournaments. Because he entered so few high-level tournaments, Sinner's career-high junior ranking was a relatively low No. 133.[11]

Sinner has been compared to Roger Federer for his calm on-court demeanor and all-court movement.[3][6][10] Federer himself has praised Sinner for the balance in his game, remarking, "What I like about him is that he almost has the same speed of shooting from the forehand and backhand."[5] Sinner's groundstroke strength is his two-handed backhand, which he hits with more topspin than any other player on the ATP Tour, registering an average of 1858 revolutions per minute on the shot to go along with a fifth-best average speed of 111.2 kilometres per hour (69.1 mph).[35] Former world No. 1 junior and tennis coach Claudio Pistolesi has praised Sinner's good lateral movement, which he attributes in part to Sinner's background in skiing.[36] As such, Sinner has been compared to Novak Djokovic, who also credits a background in skiing for improving his tennis skills.[37]

When Sinner began to prioritize tennis at age thirteen, he was coached by Riccardo Piatti, who has also been a part-time coach of Novak Djokovic and Milos Raonic.[10] At the time, he also began working with Andrea Volpini and Massimo Sartori, the latter of whom was a longtime coach of Andreas Seppi.[38] He has continued to work with Piatti as his primary coach, and Volpini as his second coach. His team also consists of physiotherapist Claudio Zimaglia and fitness coach Dalibor Sirola.[9]

Sinner resides in Monte Carlo in Monaco.[1] He is a fan of the A.C. Milan football club.[8] One of his tennis idols is compatriot Andreas Seppi, who is also from South Tyrol. Nonetheless, he aspires to surpass Seppi in terms of achievements. For that reason, his main idols are Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.[16]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sinner donated €12,500 to the Cesvi humanitarian organization to help fund medical supplies for the people in Bergamo who were facing a shortage. He also started the Sinner Pizza Challenge in which he committed to donate an additional €10 for each person who posted a photo of a pizza they made decorated with the face of Sinner himself or another Italian athlete.[8][39]

• Jannik Sinner at the Association of Tennis Professionals
• Jannik Sinner at the International Tennis Federation