Jannik Sinner approaches tennis pretty fearlessly, and his skiing experience actually helped him adopt that mindset.
Before Sinner took on tennis full-time, the Italian actually pursued a skiing career. He hails from a part of Italy where snow is abundant, so winter sports are basically something he grew up with.
He was amazing at skiing and one of the best skiing prospects in all of Italy, but still, tennis interested him. He loved it so much that he gave up on skiing to pursue tennis, and so far, he’s been proven right.
We’ll never know how good of a skier he might have become, but he’s certainly one of the best players right now, arguably the best. Much of that comes from his fearless approach to the sport.
There are very few things Sinner can’t do on a tennis court, but he’ll attempt them. He’ll go for it, which is not the case with all tennis players. Those who dare in those big moments reap most of the rewards, and that’s him.
The fear primarily comes from skiing. That sport is more dangerous than tennis because skiers go incredibly fast in downhill races. Sometimes, they have to jump as well, and he feared that when he used to ski.
Contrast that to tennis, where players are on a flat court with the worst thing possible: a loss. There is no reason to be afraid, according to Sinner, who spoke about it at the 2024 Indian Wells Open.
“I realized it when I skied that I had fear to go, you know, the downhill races. When you go very fast and then you jump 20, 30 meters, you know, it’s different. Then I had this fear. And then in my mind in tennis, it’s nothing to be scared about, no?”
It’s only a match at the end of the day. We try our best, and sometimes it goes in a good way in important moments and sometimes not. But at the end, you just lose the match.”
