Jannik Sinner is officially in history, and not just because of the successes he has collected so far: no one before him has ever succeeded.
Once upon a time, not too far back in time, there was a sport that was unrivaled. Its name was soccer, and everyone, bar none, raved about it. Players were treated like real heroes, and there was no one in the world who dared hope to compete with them. Let alone beat them in terms of popularity.
No one would have dared to imagine, then, that things could change so radically from one moment to the next. That one day someone would be born who could not only stand up to those fairy-footed superheroes, but even beat them. And that day came when, in August 2021, a certain Siglinde gave birth to her first child. A red-haired, curly-haired child who to his passion for soccer and skiing preferred, thus cutting the bull’s eye, tennis. A child who is now a world-renowned champion and who has turned the fortunes of the very elegant English-born sport on its head in some way.
It is Jannik Sinner the athlete who is credited today with shifting the attention of Italians. In the Bel Paese there is no longer only soccer, however much it continues to be in vogue. That there is a turnaround underway can be sensed, however, from the fact that, parallel to his exploit, schools and academies have boomed in terms of enrollment.
What a phenomenon Jannik Sinner is: the time is finally ripe, it’s time for change
How much “damage” Hurricane Jannik Sinner has done is clear, in case you need proof, from the data. In fact, the annual report of Google searches reveals that the most googled person in 2023 – compared to 2022 – is precisely the South Tyrolean tennis player.
(Jannik Sinner (AnsaFoto) Ilveggente.it)
After him in the ranking is a footballer, namely Romelu Lukaku. A dualism that perfectly tells the new course of the history of the sport and nicely renders the idea of the extent of the Sinner phenomenon.
He was right, then, when Angelo Binaghi, president of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation, pointed out last October that tennis was about to become like soccer. “With Sinner a regular at the Finals and perhaps a Slam winner,” he had said, “I cannot imagine a more favorable situation. He had seen it coming. And that moment, perhaps, came even sooner than anyone imagined.