Jannik Sinner

Jannik Sinner (born 16 August 2001) is an Italian professional tennis player. He has been ranked world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), including as the year-end No. 1 in 2024. Sinner has won 24 ATP Tour–level singles titles, including four majors, five Masters, and two ATP Finals titles. He also led Italy to back-to-back Davis Cup crowns in 2023 and 2024.

Despite limited success as a junior, Sinner began playing in professional men's events aged 16, and became one of the few players to win multiple ATP Challenger Tour titles at age 17. In 2019, he won the Next Generation ATP Finals and the ATP Newcomer of the Year award, and two years later became the first player born in the 2000s to enter the top 10 in rankings. Sinner won his first Masters title at the 2023 Canadian Open and finished the season as a runner-up at the 2023 ATP Finals.

At the 2024 Australian Open, Sinner defeated world No. 1 Novak Djokovic followed by Daniil Medvedev in a five-set final to win his first major title. He went on to win both the 2024 US Open and the 2024 ATP Finals to finish the year at the top of the ATP rankings, becoming the first Italian player to reach world No. 1.

In 2025, Sinner defended his title at the Australian Open. Following a three-month suspension for the accidental administration of clostebol, he faced Carlos Alcaraz in the finals of each of the remaining majors, including a five-set loss at the 2025 French Open, and won his fourth major title at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships. He ended the season by winning the 2025 ATP Finals, defeating Alcaraz in the final.

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.

Junior career

Sinner began playing tennis on the ITF Junior Circuit. In spite of having limited success as a junior, he moved mainly to the professional tour following the end of 2017. He never played the main draw of any high-level Grade 1 events in singles, and did not play any of the junior Grand Slam tournaments. The only higher-level Grade A tournament he entered was the Trofeo Bonfiglio.

Sinner followed up an opening round loss at Italy's Grade A tournament in 2017 with a quarterfinal in 2018, the only junior event he played that year. Because he entered so few high-level tournaments, Sinner's career-high junior ranking was a relatively low No. 133.

Professional career

2018: Pro debut

Sinner began playing on the ITF Men's Circuit in early 2018. With his low ranking he could initially be directly accepted into only ITF Futures events. Nonetheless, he began receiving wild cards for ATP Challenger Tour events, the second-tier tour run by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), in the second half of the year. His only ITF title of the year was in doubles, and he finished the season ranked No. 551.

2019: NextGen champion and top 100

Sinner won his first ATP Challenger title in Bergamo in February 2019 at the age of 17 years and 6 months, despite entering the tournament with no match wins at the Challenger level. He became the first person born in 2001 to reach a Challenger final, and the youngest Italian to win a Challenger title in history. With the title, he rose over 200 spots in ATP rankings up to No. 324.

After his first two ITF Futures titles, Sinner entered his first ATP tournament at the Hungarian Open as a lucky loser, where he notched his first tour-level win over home wild card Máté Valkusz. The next week, he reached his second ATP Challenger final in Ostrava, finishing runner-up to Kamil Majchrzak.

During the second half of the season Sinner played more often on the ATP Tour than the Challenger Tour. His first ATP Masters victory came at the Italian Open against Steve Johnson, and he broke into the top 200 with his next ATP win at the Croatia Open Umag in July. The next month, he won a second ATP Challenger title in Lexington to become one of just eleven 17-year-olds to have won multiple Challenger titles. After losing in qualifying at Wimbledon, Sinner qualified for his first Grand Slam tournament main draw at the US Open. He lost his debut match to No. 24 Stan Wawrinka.

Sinner had a strong finish to the season. As a wild card at the European Open, he became the youngest player in five years to reach an ATP semifinal. Along the way, he knocked off top seed and world No. 13 Gaël Monfils for his first career top 50 victory. This performance helped him break into the top 100 for the first time one week later. At the end of the season, Sinner qualified for the 2019 Next Gen ATP Finals as the Italian wild card and the lowest seed. He won in his round robin group with victories over Frances Tiafoe and Mikael Ymer, losing only to Ugo Humbert.

After defeating Miomir Kecmanović in the semifinals, Sinner upset top seed and world No. 18 Alex de Minaur in straight sets to win the title. He played one last event in Italy the following week, winning a third Challenger title in Ortisei. Sinner finished the year at world No. 78, becoming the youngest player in the year-end top 80 since Rafael Nadal in 2003. He was also named ATP Newcomer of the Year. and received the Gazzetta Sport Award for Best Performance of the Year for his win over de Minaur in the Next Gen ATP Finals.

2020: First ATP title, top 40

Early in the year Sinner made the second round of the 2020 Australian Open, recording his first major match win over home wild card Max Purcell before losing to Márton Fucsovics. As a wild card at the Rotterdam Open, he earned his first top 10 victory against world No. 10 David Goffin.

Following the ATP Tour shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sinner had a successful restart to the season. Although he lost his opening round match to Karen Khachanov at the US Open, he fared better in Europe. He reached the third round at the Rome Masters, highlighted by a victory over world No. 6 Stefanos Tsitsipas. He then progressed to become the youngest quarterfinalist at the French Open since Novak Djokovic in 2006, and the first to make the quarterfinals on debut since Rafael Nadal in 2005. During the tournament, he defeated Goffin again as well as US Open runner-up and world No. 7 Alexander Zverev before losing to Nadal.

After a semifinal at the Cologne Championship, where he lost to Zverev, Sinner closed out the season by winning the Sofia Open for his first ATP title. During the event, he defeated Next Gen rival Alex de Minaur and then Vasek Pospisil in the final. He became the youngest Italian tour-level champion in the Open Era and the youngest player overall to win an ATP title since Kei Nishikori in 2008.

Sinner finished the year ranked world No. 37.

2021: Four titles, maiden Masters final, top 10

Sinner carried over his success from late 2020 into the start of the 2021 season. He won his second career ATP title at the Great Ocean Road Open, and notably defeated No. 20 Karen Khachanov in the semifinals after saving a match point. He became the youngest to win back-to-back ATP titles since Rafael Nadal in 2005. His ten-match winning streak came to an end in the first round of the 2021 Australian Open, where he lost a tight five-set match to world No. 12 Denis Shapovalov.