Jannik Sinner has caught a lot of criticism from some circles of Italy, which deem him not Italian enough, which he dismissed.
The Italian admittedly doesn't come from the Italian heartland. Much like his compatriot Andreas Seppi, Sinner comes from the South Tyrol region of Italy, where people predominantly speak German as their first language.
Both Seppi and Sinner grew up speaking German, but neither considers themselves German or Austrian, as the region belonged to the country a long time ago. Due to his background, Sinner has a slight German dialect when speaking Italian.
It's part of who he is as an Italian from South Tyrol, whose mother tongue is German. It doesn't make him any less proud to be Italian or to represent the country. He spoke about that in his interview with Vanity Fair, declaring himself 100% Italian when asked about it.
"Always, and I'm very proud of it."
Sinner left home quite early, both in pursuit of a skiing career and then tennis. He grew up around Italians for much of his life, and that's just how he feels. After all, South Tyrol is in Italy, and he carries an Italian passport. How much more Italian can he be?
"When I was 7 I took part in ski championships with Italian kids, when I was 14 in Liguria my classmates were Italian."
Criticizing his commitment to the country is also ridiculous because he backed it up. He played in the Davis Cup, and he led the country to the trophy for the first time in many years.
He's likely going to go down as the greatest Italian tennis player of all time by the time he's done, so what more is there to criticize? A certain dialect when speaking the language. That's not a good point either, because as he pointed out, there are many dialects.
"But then, we speak our German dialect, but even in Sicily they speak a dialect that in other parts of Italy they don't understand, right?"
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