Today (Friday 25th October) an interview between world No.1 Jannik Sinner and Sky italy has been published in his native country.
The wide-ranging interview covered a variety of topics such as his rise to the top of the PIF ATP rankings, coping with the aftermath of his two failed anti-doping tests and his future in the sport. Sinner was cleared of wrongdoing by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) but the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has now failed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). WADA views the finding of “no fault or negligence” as not correct under the applicable rules. There is currently no suggestion that authorities blieves Sinner intentionally took a banned substance and the issue appears to be with the ITIA procedure.
Below is a translation of what Sinner told Sky Italy.
On being No. 1
“(Pete) Sampras used to say that when you become world number one it’s like having a target behind you and everyone wants to hit you. Losing as world number 1 is different because you feel that the moment you lose a match you really do lose. When you are number 10 and you lose against number 5 it is a bit different because he is stronger than you but when you are number 1 you are always the most wanted, but this makes the game so great.”
On how he manages to be so successful in tiebreaks
“Many people only talk about the tiebreak but in my opinion it’s just how I get to the tiebreak. I do so many different things during a set and I feel like this shot works and this doesn’t work. For example If I serve straight down the T I win the point and if I serve out wide I lose it. Lately I’ve been getting to the tiebreak doing more things and then in the tiebreak I can choose.
I feel safer with some shots and less safe with others. Experience is key. And if you notice, I’m a player who, if I’m leading 6-5 and my opponent is serving, I put pressure on him and I become even more aggressive. If we go to 6 all, we just play the tiebreak. Then I may end up hitting the tarpaulin, which can happen, because it has already happened to me. But I always try to understand before a crucial moment what works and what doesn’t work and in my opinion this year I’ve taken a step further. I haven’t played so many tiebreaks, but the ones I played, I played even more carefully.”
On whether he sees differences between the young Jannik and the Jannik who is No. 1
“I believe as a person I have never changed. What happened has not changed me as a person or how I treat the people around me or how I treat any person I meet. What changes is that you have a little less free time. But I am a person who devotes all my time possible towards work and therefore it is something that depends on me. If I want to stay at home tomorrow I can also go home but I don’t want to because my career began when I decided to leave home when I was 13 and a half years old. Now at 23 I’ve reached the point that I’ve always dreamed of becoming number 1 in the world. And it’s right now that one has to keep working and improving because there are all the other players who want to chase you at this game, I like it.”
On how he sees his future
“I’m going to play another 15 years until I am 35/40 years old. Let’s hope my body can hold on. They say that 15 years is a long time but it’s not because I arrived here in the hotel, the same hotel, same room and I realized this year passed really fast. So we are trying to make all the possible choices to continue playing tennis for as long as possible for my body, but we also can’t waste time. It’s a nice balance of improvement, working with the desire to win and having around the people you want and who you know can help you.”
On having fun when playing
“Having fun is very important because fun makes sure that even when you are tired and you go on the court you want to play. We don’t always feel like training, but I’m always keen to play a match and to play a match well you have to work hard.”
“I must consider myself as lucky because I can do what I love. It all started as a hobby. Now it’s my job but when I go out on the court it’s still a hobby because I still feel like a kid playing tennis.”
“For me, the real job is everything else: going to the gym and doing physio, going to sleep earlier and waking up before everyone else, but it’s all a set of things that make me grow both as a player and a person and so I accept it. Indeed I see it as a very, very positive thing and in my opinion it is the people or fans who give the strength in difficult moments to continue and I give something back.”
Before the US Open, the doping affair and mental strength
“It was difficult at first of all because I couldn’t open up to so many people. It was a very delicate period, very difficult at the beginning because I didn’t know how to behave and what would come up, I didn’t know what would happen even a little bit with my team. It was very difficult because normally I am always in control, but there it was quite easy to lose control. Except that after a few weeks I woke up one morning and thought ‘but in the end I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t know anything’ and so it’s already over for me. Then what the judge decides or what can come out in the end is something I can no longer control.”
“The most difficult moment was when the news came out. And it came out at a very delicate time for me, before a grand slam. I wanted to train already on Wednesday, but the news arrived on Tuesday. Then it was better not to go training because there would be too much chaos at the club. So then we go on Thursday, we go in the evening because there are so many people who have already left. We got there, we had all the cameras after us, it was very tough. I looked at the other players a bit to understand what they really thought and I asked myself many, many questions.”
“It was difficult to prepare for a Grand Slam like this. Except that I am convinced that nothing happens by chance and perhaps this case was just to understand who is your friend and who isn’t. I separated these two matters and I realized that there are many players who I didn’t think were friends and a fairly large amount that I thought these are friends and instead they are not. For this reason, in the end I don’t say that it did me good, but it made me understand many things.”
“The problem was also when nothing had happened yet and people who knew me or played a match against saw me in low spirits and said to me ‘but you won, why are you like this?’ what do I answer? I said no, I’m fine, everything is fine. Then there are the matches where the night before I didn’t sleep as you probably saw at Wimbledon before the match with Medvedev. The night before I didn’t sleep, then in the morning I felt sick.”
“In my opinion I have to thank my team who were close to me all the time. For example Darren Cahill came to me, he was with me, my dad came and thanks to them I felt safe, protected. That’s why I say that when you win tournaments or even matches that mean a lot I always say it’s thanks to the people who are close to me because without them all this wouldn’t be possible. I don’t know how I could overcome all this and I’m happy with how I managed.”
“In the end my job was to separate the problem and my work. I have always tried to feel good on the court, I have always trained and I am always mentally prepared to try to play good tennis. In the end, that’s why I succeeded.”
“Mental strength was the determining element because matches are won with the head. Everyone plays well, the problem is always small details and I have managed to understand many things in this season and I have won many games with mental strength.”
On the next season
“Next season is going to be very different because I’m in a position that I know I can win big tournaments. This year’s goal is to finish number 1. Next year my goal is to learn a lot of things from the physical and mental side again because in my opinion there is a small step that I can take and try to do as much as possible with as few matches as possible. Obviously if you ask me which tournaments I want to win or not, I keep that for myself, but in my head I know that I can win big tournaments, which in my opinion is already a very important step. I won two Slams this year, so let’s see next year, which obviously are and will always be the most prestigious tournaments for me. I know it will be tough to do better than this year, but let’s see what we can do and let’s hope for the best.”
