Jannik Sinner is proof that you don’t have to be bad to be good for tennis

Late in the first set of his match on Tuesday night, Jannik Sinner was given a time-violation warning by chair umpire Mo Lahyani. Sinner had taken a few too many seconds inspecting a ball and throwing it back to the ball boy. When Layhani announced the warning, Sinner briefly shook his head in annoyance, asked for the ball back, and walked toward the chair.

“Is Sinner actually going to get mad?” the person watching the match with me asked. We both leaned forward to hear what would happen next. Neither of us could remember seeing the young Italian argue or show any signs of frustration with anyone.

And we wouldn’t see any more signs of it here, either. Instead of throwing a tantrum, Sinner handed Layhani the ball, which he thought was bouncing differently than the others. Then he said, “It’s all right,” referring to the time violation, and returned to the baseline. Situation defused. Calm quickly restored. On to to the next point. We’ll have to wait for another day—or decade—before we see any signs of rage from him.

Sinner’s ultra-calm style is clearly working for him. After his brief chat with Layhani, he went on to beat Ben Shelton. The American was playing in front of a partisan crowd in Indian Wells, and every time he did anything right, the fans roared their approval and urged him on.

A different top-ranked opponent might have been annoyed by that. Daniil Medvedev might have thrown his arms up sarcastically, as if to say, “Now give ME some love.” Novak Djokovic might have smiled ruefully, shaken his head, and wondered why he had to be the bad guy again. Sinner didn’t show any sign that he heard anything at all. When Shelton broke him to level the first set at 5-5, and then held for 6-5, the audience went berserk. But Sinner quieted them again by holding for 6-6 and winning the tiebreaker.

Maybe Sinner took some heart from seeing all of the plush, orange-and green-topped carrot toys that dotted the stadium. Some fans held them up and danced with them on the big screen during changeovers; others covered themselves in carrot-colored suits. The vegetable is a reference to Sinner’s orangey hair, and the fact that he has eaten carrots on changeovers during matches. Over the past year, it has become the symbol of the Jannik Sinner superfan. It’s a club that’s growing quickly.

Sinner, who is 15-0 in 2024, has suddenly become the latest face of the men’s game. Until last fall, most of us thought that was going to be Carlos Alcaraz for the foreseeable future. Now that the Italian has risen and the Spaniard has fallen a bit, we’ve had to adjust to a very different personality.

Alcaraz is a fiery and acrobatic athlete who smiles his way through matches and expresses everything he feels. Sinner, by contrast, is long, lanky, and a little bit shy. He wins with superior and mostly straightforward power, and almost never shows any emotion. He’ll shake his racquet and stare at his coaches after a winning shot, but he has even cut back on that of late. If you’re looking for operatic emotion from Sinner, you’ve come to the wrong Italian. Like his similarly stoical countryman Andreas Seppi, he was raised at the country’s northern edge, in the icy Alps, on the border with Austria. His sensibility seems as much Central European as it does Italian.

At first glance, Sinner wouldn’t seem to have the same kind of star power that Alcaraz has. Conventional wisdom says the sport needs extroverts and characters, and there’s no doubt that Alcaraz is a positive and popular new force. It’s also true that bad boys and villains, like Nick Kyrgios, draw crowds. But it isn’t true that tennis fans necessarily find quiet, nice guys like Sinner to be boring.

That was a big part of Roger Federer’s appeal when he first rose to the top in his early 20s. Yes, he had a stylish game, but he was also seen as down to earth and innocent, someone who didn’t play mind games or try to get away with anything, someone who did things the “right” way. It’s nice to discover that someone like that, someone genuine rather than cagey, can succeed so spectacularly in a one-on-one competitive sport, can beat back the loudmouths and bullies of the world with the simple, silent power of his racquet and his talent. Tennis fans like that idea.

I think Sinner will have the same, he-does-things-the-right-way appeal. Last fall, during the round-robin stage of the ATP Finals, he had a chance to tank a match and prevent Djokovic from reaching the semifinals. Instead, Sinner gave a full effort and recorded a win. Djokovic made the semis, and went on to beat Sinner in the final. While the move may have backfired that day, it showed that Sinner isn’t afraid of anyone. The following week, he faced Djokovic again in Davis Cup and won.

You can only say that Sinner has gone about his career the right way, too. He seems to be someone who treats other people as equals, and sets out to fix problems instead of whining about them. During the pandemic, he started a mental health initiative called “What Gets You Moving?” where he interviews athletes about how they train and stay upbeat. When he saw his own game starting to stagnate a couple of years ago, he didn’t hesitate to replace his longtime coach with a new team. Last year, he also didn’t hesitate to retool his most important shot, his serve. The results speak for themselves.

Sinner knows, in other words, there are no shortcuts. Against Shelton, he was deflated after he was broken while serving for the first set. Many players would let that disappointment carry over to the next few games. Before last year, Sinner himself might have been one of those players. He knows the feeling well.

“You can only learn by first losing them,” he said of those types of moments, when the pressure gets to you. “I lost also so many of these types of matches, no? You just have to accept it in one way, and then try to work. I mean, that’s the only thing.”

Since Sinner’s title run at the Australian Open, the arenas where he has played, in Rotterdam and Indian Wells, have been full of people and full of anticipation. Quiet or loud, introverted or extroverted, nothing makes a tennis player popular like winning.