I meet Jannik Sinner at a hotel in Monte Carlo. The day is gloomy, windy. He shows up in tennis kit, a bit intimidated, perhaps, but with a ready wit. I tell him he seems taller than the last time we met. “Or maybe you, as you got older, got smaller,” he says.
On his wrist he has his Rolex GMT-Master II, with a black-and-brown bezel. He takes it off so I can see the inscription on the back, celebrating his first Grand Slam victory, at the Australian Open in January 2024, beating Daniil Medvedev in the final. “That is how the most incredible year of my life began,” he says.
Sinner is 23 years old. Since 10 June, he has been the world number one in the ATP tennis ranking: the first Italian ever to take the position. He is also the first Italian to win two Grand Slams in the same season, having won the US Open in September.
He is still young, but it’s been a long climb to the top. He grew up in Sesto Pusteria, a
village on the border between Italy and Austria. At home, his mother, Siglinde, and father, Hanspeter, speak German. When Sinner left his family at the age of 14 to go to a tennis academy in Bordighera, near the French border—over 400 miles from his home—he spoke almost no Italian.
Now, he is a sensation in Italy—where tennis-school enrolments are skyrocketing—and beyond. His distinctive red hair and his rangy frame; his focus on mental health rather than winning at all costs; and his fans, the carrot boys, frequently sighted courtside, all combine to make Sinner the opposite of a ball-shooting robot. It’s not difficult to see why Rolex would want him as an ambassador.
