His face stands out throughout Turin. On the posters, on the banners that color the long city avenues, there is him, Jannik Sinner. There are eight champions arriving for the Nitto ATP Finals, and we will be rubbing our eyes, but the wait and collective attention can only be for the Italian number one. He is the man of dreams, ready to set the PalaAlpitour on fire from next Sunday and (hopefully) for the entire week to come.
Jannik wasted no time: he was the first to land in the city, ahead of all his colleagues, in order to clarify his intentions, if ever needed.
The natural favorite for the title of “Master” is Novak Djokovic, winner last year and chasing the absolute record of victories at the Finals: he has six, like Roger Federer, but is aiming for the seventh to become the most successful in history. And the Serbian’s first opponent appears to be Sinner, fresh from his controversial withdrawal from the Paris Bercy tournament due to calendar problems that forced him to make a night-time effort that would have put his health at risk.
Jannik has overcome the setback and is in great shape. He is making his debut as a starter at the Masters, after taking over as a reserve in 2021 due to Matteo Berrettini’s injury, and wants to end in the best possible way an extraordinary 2023 in which he won 4 tournaments – Montpellier, Toronto, Beijing and Vienna – and the beauty of 57 games, becoming the most successful Italian during a season, better even than Adriano Panatta (56) and Corrado Barazzutti (55). Sinner shows up in Turin as number 4 in the world and wants to write another historical page. Already two years ago, on his debut as a reserve, he won a match against the Polish Hurkacz; now he wants more. This is why he is already in Turin: he arrived yesterday around lunchtime at the Hotel Principi di Piemonte, the players’ headquarters.
Sweatshirt and glasses, he looked like the classic university student walking around the city. In mid-afternoon he moved to the Circolo della Stampa Sporting for the first training session on the greenset pitches of the brand new training center on Corso Agnelli. A first taste of an hour and a half, in short, accompanied by the technical staff made up of Simone Vagnozzi and Darren Cahill and a quick greeting to the Argentine doubles pair made up of Maximo Gonzalez and Andrès Molteni who worked on the court alongside. All under the attentive gaze, but sheltered by large black glasses, of the girlfriend with whom he left Sporting just before 7pm. Today we repeat Jannik will train from 11am to 1pm and from 5pm to 7pm and tickets are on sale to attend.
Tomorrow the Danish Holger Runee will arrive and with him, closely, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Sacha Zverev, the winner of the first Turin edition of the Finals in 2021. Without a doubt, however, the duel of support and the passion of the fans will be between Sinner and Djokovic, capable of setting the PalaAlpitour on fire last year. Nole, freshly triumphant in Paris where he won the 40th Master1000 of his career, wants to put the exclamation point on an extraordinary season – three Slams won (Australian Open, Roland Garros and US Open) and 90% of the matches won -, with the goal of closing 2023 as world number one. All he needs to do is win one match to make it.