Sinner, everything we would have expected from him but this: the champion’s unexpected confession left everyone stunned.
Adriano Panatta breathed a marathon-long sigh of relief when he saw Jannik Sinner score the winning point at Rod Laver Arena. The fact that he had just won his first Slam, the one in the land of kangaroos, would finally deprive the former Italian champion of the “uncomfortable” label of the last Italian to win a Major.
“Now no one will bother me anymore,” he had said ironically, but not too ironically, in the aftermath of the South Tyrolean’s triumph at the Australian Open. But he was also happy because he has always believed in Jannik. He had been singing its praises from the very first moment, certain as he was that the diminutive little boy with the red curls would succeed, sooner or later, in making the big names on the circuit eat his dust. Which, punctually, came true. And how it came true.
It is all so true that synneritis, by now, is a pandemic. And it is not at all surprising that more and more newspapers, weeklies, monthlies and various magazines decide to devote their covers to the champion of the moment, whom everyone believes is already one step away both from the top of the Atp ranking and from winning his second Slam. Even the weekly Oggi slapped his face on the front page, reserving for Sinner an in-depth report accompanied by two invaluable testimonials.
Sinner as Panatta: the comparison you don’t expect
One is that of the Carrot Boys, the bizarre little group of supporters who, dressed as carrots, follow Jannik everywhere. The other is Panatta himself, who in the interview contained in Oggi spoke at 360 degrees about the red fox from San Candido. Daring, even, a comparison that there and then might turn your nose up at it.
Adrian claims that he and Sinner are more alike than they may seem. Yeah, actually that’s not the impression one gets, looking at them from the outside. Panatta was a heartthrob, while the Melbourne champion only has eyes for Maria Braccini and is more interested in sports, however, than in fun and fleeting passions. Nevertheless, the legendary Roman tennis player, now 73, made a rather emblematic statement to the weekly magazine.
“He is very reserved but so was I, the covers with the girls I suffered. He is certainly more controlled, less fuming: I Rune would tell him off right away, as I did with Nastase. However, Jannik’s first gift is intelligence; he is a sponge, always learning.” An unexpected confession, the one about the covers: but will it be true, then, as he says, that some similarities actually exist?