Sinner, there was nothing to be done this time: Nole won. Now it’s clear that beating him takes more than that.
Basketballers, strikers, gymnasts, wrestlers, skiers. There’s a little bit of everything in the ranking of the 10 most influential athletes of 2023 according to Forbes, which the famous star magazine released just in the past few days.
An extremely diverse assortment of champions that gives a good idea of how sports, nowadays, is no longer a one-way street. There was a time when this ranking was largely populated solely and exclusively by soccer players, but that is no longer the case. There is now room for other disciplines as well, and there is plenty of it, especially for tennis, which is excellently represented by not one, but as many as three world-class players. Are you curious to find out who are the three tennis players we are talking about and who would be, according to Forbes, the most influential of this year now winding down?
In fifth place is Iga Swiatek, undisputed queen of the women’s circuit. Aryna Sabalenka may have undermined her at every turn during this crackling 2023, but she has clearly failed to steal her thunder or, much less, her popularity. The Polish tennis player, think about it, would even be more influential than Lionel Messi, who is far from a thing of the past and still defends his eighth place with great pride, according to this ranking.
Sinner, no dice this time: Nole won
The other two tennis champions in the rankings are Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic. And we are sure you are dying to find out, at this point, who is more influential than the other, who won this umpteenth face-off.
Even though he has won the title of most beloved tennis player of 2023, he is not the high achiever among the two. Nole is in third place-above him are only Simone Biles, a gymnast, and Jaime Jaquez Jr, an up-and-coming basketball star. A sign that the era of his domination is not yet over and that at the level of audience appeal he continues to wield a great deal of power.
Still, it remains a great honor that Sinner, for his part, is on this list of the 10 most influential athletes of 2023 according to Forbes. Little does it matter that he failed, this time, to impose himself on Nole: it takes more than that to beat the world No. 1 in this respect. He has dominated the Atp ranking for so long that it is the least, that the Serb is so high and Jannik is still not as influential and powerful as he is. But time to time. Sooner or later…
