Jannik Sinner is the No. 1 in world tennis, the first Italian to reach the Atp's highest peak. He is 22 years old and, accomplice to Djokovic's retirement, became one at Roland Garros, after beating Bulgarian Dimitrov in the quarters and gaining access to the semifinals of the Paris slam for the first time. Sinner is an Italian from the Deep North. He grew up in Val Pusteria, in Sesto, a few miles from San Candido, in the shadow of Monte Elmo, Croda Rossa and the Three Peaks of Lavaredo.
Alta Pusteria is one of the most beautiful corners of South Tyrol, a fairy-tale place that seems almost unreal, as if it came out of the pen of a Walt Disney cartoonist. Then again, Jannik already ended up there last May on the Mickey Mouse cover: a tall, red-haired, polite, kind, never a word out of place, never a negative expression, never a wrong comma. The son of a waitress mom and a cook dad, he left the family vacation home at age 14 to move to Bordighera to the tennis center of Riccardo Piatti, Italy's top talent scout.
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Three years later he was already very clear in his mind. A clip is circulating on the web of him as a 17-year-old who, after a minor tournament final lost to German Peter Heller, says exactly this: “My dream is to become number 1 in the world and to win many slams. But no hurry, I have a lot of time, I am young and, in my opinion, I am doing well. Now you have to continue." It is August 18, 2018, and Jannik has just entered the top 900 tennis players on the planet.
One hundred and ninety-two centimeters by eighty kilograms, Jannik Sinner has erased the clichés with which the average Italian is portrayed. He is exactly the opposite of the average Italian. No cunning, no subterfuge, no attraction to the stage: just hard work, manic application, concentration. Writes Adriano Panatta: "There is no predestination in Sinner's new achievement. There is work, attention, preparation, certainly even sacrifice. There is a very special desire to do things right."
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He is dating Russian tennis player Anna Kalinskaya, lives in Monte Carlo and earns, according to a calculation by Corriere della Sera, about three million euros a month, which is bound to increase quickly. Companies vie with him for million-dollar contracts. He is the perfect testimonial for any campaign. People like him immensely. As always happens in such cases, the race for praise is unregulated. Politicians, singers, hustlers, trapeze artists and communication acrobats compete wildly on the web to see who can give the best compliment. He remains impassive. He gives thanks and, as soon as he can, steps out of the cone of light, just as he did when he declined an invitation to Sanremo saying he had to train.
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His climb to the top of tennis has also changed the lives of six boys from Piedmont who are now traveling the world with him. They call themselves the Carota Boys. They quickly turned from fans into entrepreneurs: on their website (https://carotaboys.it/) they sell hats, T-shirts and accessories dedicated to Jannik.
Enrico Ponsi, Francesco Gaboardi, Alessandro Dedominici, Alberto Mondino, Lorenzo Ferrato, and Gianluca Bertorello, all under 30, were thunderstruck upon seeing Sinner, during a changeover at the 2019 Atp Vienna, eating a carrot instead of the usual banana. At that moment, writes Gazzetta dello Sport, the light bulb went on. The six boys showed up at the Internazionali d'Italia in carrot costumes, began to frequent the circuit, and immediately became world-famous. So much so that, Carlos Alcaraz, Nadal's heir and Sinner's main rival, makes no secret of the fact that he is a big fan of theirs.
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Now that Jannik carrot-haired Jannik has become number one, the CarotOne, the Carrot Boys' prospects have also changed: on the horizon we see the increasingly real possibility of golden deals.
Illustration by Gloria Dozio - Acrimònia Studios
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