Rennae Stubbs, who is a former player and coach of Serena Williams, praised Jannik Sinner for refusing to attend the Sanremo Music Festival.
Sinner became a big star in Italy in recent months. Not only did he win the Davis Cup for the country, but he also won the Australian Open recently. He was honored by the government upon his return to the country, and that's just one of the honors that he got a chance to experience in recent months.
He was also invited to the Sanremo Music Festival, which is a pretty important event in Italy, but he actually refused the invitation, wanting to focus on the Rotterdam Open. It proved a good decision because he won the event in the end.
Keeping tennis as his priority was praised by Stubbs, who admires players like that as opposed to players, who couldn't focus on tennis during the peaks of their careers, like the youngster does.
"That’s the one thing that I would have to say against Matteo Berrettini for example. Look, we call a spade a spade on this podcast and I love Matteo, he’s a great guy. He’s very good looking, all the stuff that we all love about him."
Matteo Berrettini had tremendous success only recently, and he was one of the first Italians of this new generation to break through, but while at his peak, he didn't seem to be focused only on tennis according to Stubbs.
"And he’s an amazing tennis player and yes, he’s had terrible injuries over the last couple of years but when he was at his peak, when he was doing really well, he was going to the Met Gala, he was doing photoshoots."
On top of that, the Australian coach mentioned also Emma Raducanu, who too, has been often criticized for her life outside of the tennis court.
"And I’m fine with that because Jannik’s got his Gucci stuff and Matteo has his Boss stuff but that’s maybe where you have to maybe fault him a little bit. I know a lot of people have given Emma Raducanu sh*t for that. That’s where it’s important to have people around you that are advising you to say what is your priority."
Former WTA player, Andrea Petkovic, who was on the podcast with Stubbs, praised the young Italian for refusing the invitation and focusing on his tennis.
"It’s a big honor to be invited to the Sanremo Music Festival. As anybody, not just as an artist. And Jannik actually didn’t take the invitation. He refused to come because he had to train to go to Rotterdam and it was a controversy because everyone was like, 'Oh he’s not honoring the invitation."
"And I would have gone, I would’ve been in Sanremo so maybe that’s why I never won Majors. At the same time, I really respect it and then seeing him win Rotterdam was like, yeah he did the right thing."
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