Jannik Sinner (born 16 August 2001) is an Italian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 4 by the ATP, achieved on 2 October 2023, making him the highest ranked Italian male player (tied with Adriano Panatta) and world No. 124 in doubles, achieved on 27 September 2021. Sinner has won ten ATP Tour titles in singles, including a Masters 1000 title at the 2023 Canadian Open, and one in doubles.
Sinner grew up in northern Italy in the region of South Tyrol. He was active in skiing, football, and tennis as a child. After winning a national championship in skiing at age eight, Sinner switched his focus to tennis at age thirteen and moved to Bordighera on the Italian Riviera to train with veteran coach Riccardo Piatti. Despite limited success as a junior, Sinner began playing in professional events at age 16 and became one of the few players to win multiple ATP Challenger Tour titles at age 17. He won the ATP Newcomer of the Year award in 2019 after breaking through into the top 100, reaching his first ATP semifinal, and winning the Next Generation ATP Finals in Milan.
Sinner continued his rise into the top 50 in 2020 with his first top 10 victory, a French Open quarterfinal (becoming the youngest quarterfinalist in men's singles since Novak Djokovic in 2006), and a maiden ATP title at the 2020 Sofia Open. He had a strong start to 2021, highlighted by his second ATP title in a row and a Masters 1000 runner-up at the Miami Open. On 1 November 2021, he became the first player born in the 2000s to enter the ATP top 10. He became the first teenage ATP 500 champion since the category was renamed in 2009 by winning the 2021 Citi Open. Sinner won his first Masters 1000 title at the 2023 Canadian Open in Toronto.
Early life and background
Jannik Sinner was born 16 August 2001 to Hanspeter and Siglinde Sinner in Innichen in the predominantly German-speaking region of South Tyrol in northern Italy into a Roman Catholic family. He grew up in the town of Sexten, where his father and mother work as a chef and a waitress at a ski lodge. He has a brother named Marc. 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 the age of twelve.
While training in skiing, Sinner gave up tennis for a year at the age of seven before his father pushed him to return to the sport. When he resumed playing, he began working with Heribert Mayr as his first regular coach. Nonetheless, tennis was still only his third priority behind skiing and football.
At the age of thirteen, Sinner decided to give up skiing and football in favour of tennis. He preferred it over skiing because he wanted to compete directly against an opponent and to have more margin of error over the course of an entire match. He also wanted to be in an individual sport where he could make all of the decisions, an opportunity he would not have in a team sport like football. He decided to move on his own 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. At the centre, Sinner lived with the family of Luka Cvjetković, one of his coaches. Before Sinner began training in tennis full-time with Piatti, he had been playing only twice a week.
Junior career
Sinner began playing on the ITF Junior Circuit, the premier junior tour which is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), 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.
Professional career
2018: ITF Futures and Challenger Tour
Sinner wasn't too focused on the junior circuit, and he began playing on the ITF Men's Circuit in early 2018. With his low ranking, he could initially be directly accepted into only ITF Futures events. Nonetheless, he began receiving wild cards for ATP Challenger Tour events, the second-tier tour run by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), in the second half of the year. His only ITF title of the year was in doubles, and he finished the season ranked No. 551.