Newly-crowned Canadian Open champion Jannik Sinner revealed two skills he picked up while growing up as a junior skier that he's transferred to the tennis court.
Sinner came full circle in Toronto on Sunday afternoon, capturing his first Masters 1000 crown with a straight-sets win over Alex De Minaur. Later on during his post-match press conference, a journalist asked Sinner if it is realistic to transfer any skills from skiing to tennis.
Long before Sinner climbed the tennis ladder, he was descending the high and extensive mountains in the Italian Alps. Sinner's rise and tennis career has been truly fascinating and sometimes defies logic. He was a junior champion in Skiing but only changed the course of his career in his early teens when he decided to take tennis at heart.
His talent, however, was unwavering and vast such that Riccardo Piatti, who nurtured Sinner at his Academy, noticed the intangible strength he picked up from skiing: focus. Gliding on snow calls for intense focus, akin to what tennis players go through at every point. But Sinner, in his own words, feels skiing is risky to the body, but if there are any skills he picked up it was sliding and stability.
"The only skill I would say is maybe the sliding and the balance on court. Maybe that's the only thing. But, like, generally talking, it's a completely different sport. One of the reasons why I chose tennis is because in tennis you don't have to be really afraid of - you know, of nothing, because nothing can really happen. In ski, you know, when you fall down, you never know if you break something or not."
Sinner also goes on to point out another reason why he took up tennis professionally. Even though tennis is profoundly synonymous with a sport of fine margins, Sinner understands one mistake is still reversible and a player can still win a match, which is the complete opposite to ski.
"So that's one of the reasons, if not the reason, why I chose to play tennis, no? And even if you miss one ball, but you have lots of opportunities somehow to win the match, which is another scenario where I prefer tennis. And, you know, in a ski race, you make one mistake, you cannot win, no? So there are a couple of different things."
0 Comments