Don’t panic, it’s Jannik
Jannik who? It’s Jannik Sinner, the 2024 Australian Open winner. This is an unfamiliar name in men’s professional tennis where presently, with Roger Federer retired and Rafael Nadal contemplating retirement, Novak Djokovic has the major stranglehold. Probably not for a long time now.
In 2022, Sinner became the youngest player to reach the quarterfinals in all four Grand Slam tournaments since Djokovic.
The 4th seeded 22-year old was a quarterfinalist at last year’s Aussie Open. A junior competitive skier, Sinner is the first Italian, male or female, to win the Aussie Open singles title and the youngest from his country to get a Grand Slam. The game almost took 4 hours enroute to defeating 3rd seed Daniil Medvedev in 5 sets.
Sinner’s family comes from the South Tyrol region of Italy, on the Austrian border and German is their main language. It is famous for its mountains that’s why he chose skiing until he shifted his focus on tennis at age 12.
Sinner is the youngest player to defeat top 5 opponents in the final three matches of a major. He won over 5th seed Andrey Rublev, 10-time Australian Open champion and top seed Djokovic, that saw the end of his 33-match winning streak at Melbourne Park. Michael Stich did it first at Wimbledon in 1991.
He idolizes Federer and Nadal. Aside from skiing, he also played football and is a fan of A.C. Milan of the Italian Serie A. To date, Sinner’s tennis success resulted in endorsements from Gucci, Alfa Romeo, Rolex, Head, Nike and Italian coffee company Lavazza among others.
Medvedev, meanwhile, joins Andy Murray as the only two players losing their first three consecutive Australian Open championships. In 2021, he lost to Djokovic. The following year, Nadal came back from a two-sets-to-love deficit and grabbed the trophy. The Russian was on his sixth Grand Slam finals and it was his first against someone not named Nadal or Djokovic.
With Carlos Alcaraz winning Wimbledon last year and now Sinner at the Australian Open, the young guns have arrived.*