C’is a red-haired boy sitting next to our dreams. His name is Jannik Sinner, for two years he has taken the heart and eyes of Italy, not just of tennis patients. His coach, Riccardo Piatti, uses words stolen from Lucio Dalla to tell it: «Jannik’s exceptional gift is that he is a normal boy, in a world that is not. This is why it is difficult to take him as an example ».
One who believes neither too much nor too little, but enjoys being that who has always wanted – a talented tennis player – and for this reason he is not in dangerliare road, in a world that opens a thousand hatches for every fifteen you play. Who wants to become number one in the world and is not even afraid to say it, even though he knows very well that it is a desire to be handled with care.
He hasn’t won much yet, in fact almost nothing – the Next Gen Finals in 2019, the ATP tournament in Sofia this year, while for example Matteo Berrettini has already achieved much more – but it is the way he did it that he did seem like two cups, basically minor, a blank check. With a figure still waiting to be imagined.
In the States they would say that he is a “natural”, one who finds everything easy, who knows how to hide fatigue behind quick gestures. His true art is to use thought to add quality, subtracting the superfluous. «Jannik simplifies everything on the pitch, just like Djokovic», Piatti always says, and he had both of them in his hands. And if Nole let it slip when the fun came, with Sinner she is planning the masterpiece of a lifetime.
Why, it is useless to hide behind a racket (Jan never does), from the youngest Italian to win an ATP tournament – at 19 years and two months -, from the child-adult capable of moving life and future from the Dolomites to Bordighera at thirteen years old. and to climb 500 places in the rankings in two years, now everyone is expecting big things. Nuggets and diamonds, not jewelery, which in tennis means winning Slam tournaments, becoming number 1 in the world. Maybe take the ATP Finals, the tournament of the masters which, looking at the cases of history, from 2021 and for five years will be played in Turin. Not only the Italians expect it, in slam fasting (men) since Panatta, but anyone with tennis on their fingertips, from McEnroe to Federer, from Nadal, who chose him as a training partner for the next Australian Open , to many brands – Lavazza, Alfa Romeo, Rolex, Parmigiano Reggiano, or Fastweb, which put him in the same lane as Filippo Tortu, that of young people in the race towards a winning future – who have already understood that today he is the one comet star and the good news of our sport. It will be because it was Jannik who chose tennis, not tennis who chose him.
“As a child I couldn’t hold the racket in my hand, I crawled it on the ground and only raised it when I had to hit the ball,” says the Young Buddha. “I did well with skiing, but I liked tennis better, and still today it’s the most important thing in my life, after my family and friends ». Before the desire to improve in the kitchen like the father cook, to beat his assistant coach Andrea Volpini in kart races, or to make a steady couple with some of the girls who surely already love him. For the boy who came from the cold who even in the empty year of tennis and overwhelmed by pain showed Italy, as a non-trivial Italian, that by hurrying up calmly, focusing on competence and not being satisfied with what is in his pocket, it can go far.
The stopping of competitions in theory should have put him at a disadvantage, but as soon as tennis started Jan was ready: to beat Zverev in Rome, scare Nadal in Paris, triumph over everyone in Bulgaria. “In sport, the head counts for 70 percent, the physique for 20 and the strokes for 10,” says Harry Potter from Val Pusteria. That he finds a lot of magic in his forearms, but he is convinced that his true strength, the most useful talent, lies behind that basket of red hair, «and in the teachings that my family passed on to me. Then, if you like sport, you can overcome even the difficult moments ». Those that have been there and those that will come, inevitable, in a career that promises a lot, almost everything. «In 2021 I only ask that it be a normal season, and to be able to play at least 60 games: choosing a goal is important, then you must have calm and people who love you. If you really want something, and you work well with it, in the end the results will come ». The exceptional feat – says Piatti, Dalla would agree – is sometimes semsimply be normal.
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