Who is Jannik Sinner

Early life and background

Jannik Sinner was born 16 August 2001 to Hanspeter and Siglinde Sinner in Innichen, in the Northern Italian province of South Tyrol. His mother tongue is German. He grew up in the town of Sexten in the Dolomites, the family hometown, where his father worked as a chef and his mother as a waitress at a ski lodge. He has an older adopted brother, Mark, who was born in Russia in 1998. Sinner began skiing at age three and competed in his first ski races at the age of eight. He began playing tennis at age seven. He was one of Italy's top junior skiers from seven to 12 years old, winning a national championship in giant slalom at age seven in 2008 and becoming a national runner-up at age 11 in 2012.While training in skiing Sinner gave up tennis for a year at age seven before his father pushed him to return to the sport. When he resumed playing, Heribert Mayr was his first regular coach. Sinner's grandfather drove him to Tennis San Giorgio early in the morning, where Sinner had to take individual lessons with Mayr as no child his age there was at his level and he was much faster than older children. Nonetheless, tennis was still only his third priority, behind skiing and football. In the mornings he competed in ski races and in the afternoons he played football matches for AFC Sexten (Youth).At age 13, Sinner gave up skiing and football in favour of tennis due to his physique; he was tall, thin, and weighed only 35 kilograms. He also preferred competing in an individual sport directly against an opponent and having more control over the outcome. He moved on his own to Bordighera on the Italian Riviera, Liguria, to train at the Piatti Tennis Center under Riccardo Piatti and Massimo Sartori, a decision his parents supported. There, Sinner lived with the family of Luka Cvjetković, one of his coaches, and later moved out to share an apartment with two boys. Before he began training in tennis full-time with Piatti, he had been playing only twice a week. He graduated from the Walther Institute, a private economics school in Bolzano.

Sinner is an aggressive baseliner and is one of the hardest hitters on the ATP tour. Sinner's groundstroke strength is his two-handed-backhand, which he hits with more topspin than any other player on the tour, registering an average of 1858 revolutions per minute on the shot along with the fifth-best average speed of 111.2 km/h (69.1 mph).Sinner has been compared to Roger Federer for his calm on-court demeanour and all-court movement. 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." 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. In this regard, Sinner has been compared to Novak Djokovic, who also credits a background in skiing for improving his tennis skills.Sinner plays with contact lenses and has stated that he cannot even see the ball without them.

When Sinner began to prioritise tennis at age thirteen, he was coached by Riccardo Piatti, who had also been a part-time coach of Novak Djokovic and Milos Raonic. At the time, he also began working with Andrea Volpini and Massimo Sartori, the latter of whom was a longtime coach of Andreas Seppi. He continued to work with Piatti as his primary coach, and Volpini as his second coach. His team also consisted of physiotherapist Claudio Zimaglia and fitness coach Dalibor Širola.In February 2022, he ended his long collaboration with Piatti and his team and began to train with Simone Vagnozzi, ex-coach of Marco Cecchinato, new fitness coach Umberto Ferrara and physiotherapist. In July 2022, coach Darren Cahill officially joined Sinner's team. Instead of hiring a mental coach like other tennis players, Sinner uses Formula Medicine, an Italian mental training program developed for Formula 1 drivers. In early 2023, he hired Giacomo Naldi as his personal physiotherapist. In September 2024, he replaced Ferrara and Naldi with Novak Djokovic's former fitness trainer Marco Panichi and physiotherapist Ulises Badio. He also works with osteopath Andrea Cipolla. On 23 July 2025, Sinner announced that he had reappointed his former fitness trainer Umberto Ferrara as his fitness coach with immediate effect.

Sinner's father, a chef, cooks for the team at major tournaments.