Meet Jannik Sinner, the Gucci model targeting a Wimbledon final

Son of a chef and a waitress, one would assume that the only thing Jannik Sinner must be good at is cooking.

“I can cook to survive,” he once joked Interview magazine. The cooking, he suggests, is for the rest of his family to work out.

But Sinner is talented at many things.

The Italian polygot is a top 10 tennis player, was a former skiing champion as a junior, is a successful model at Gucci and even has his own devoted ‘Carota Boys’ fan club.

One thing he has yet to do, still in the infancy of his career at age 21, is make his way to a Grand Slam final. Today he has that same chance – albeit against Novak Djokovic, the greatest player ever in the men’s game.

The Italian number 1 is about to reach the first Wimbledon final of his tennis career

He comes from humble beginnings in Italy and left home at the age of 13

It is difficult to portray Sinner as an unknown great when he is the poster child of the ‘next generation’ alongside world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz.

Sinner was born in August 2001 in San Candido, a small town in northern Italy near the Austrian border, and grew up in a humble environment with parents Hanspeter and Siglinde.

He has a brother, Mark, but family details are scarce. They are rarely seen at his games and his social media is dominated by endorsement deals and professional images from the court.

Sinner shared a rare photo of him and his brother in 2019, but fans find the family dynamics mysterious, though they are widely regarded as hard-working people with strong moral values.

Sinner, who now lives in Monte-Carlo, enters into a similar private relationship with his girlfriend, Maria Braccini.

The model, who has 103,000 followers on her private Instagram page, has been described as “introverted” and “fiercely private,” often keeping a low profile around the bright lights of Sinner’s burgeoning career.

Braccini is at Wimbledon but manages to dodge the cameras so far, something Sinner seems happy about.

But back to Sinner’s early life and things could have turned out so differently if he had been patient in his skiing career.

Given the area where he grew up, everyone skied. That was just how it was.

“Skiing is a pretty common sport to begin with where I am. There are a lot of ski runs literally outside my front door,” Sinner once told ATPTour.com.

Sinner was originally a star in skiing, but chose to devote himself entirely to tennis at the age of thirteen

He has proven to be a heartthrob out of court and has landed many endorsement deals

Gucci is one of the biggest brands that the top 10 player has worked with in recent years

Here, Sinner is pictured in one of Gucci’s campaigns, as shared on his Instagram page

“I remember the first time I went skiing. My brother had some lessons and I saw him and I wanted to go but my mom said to me “Not today”.

“I kept crying and asking her and then she said, ‘Okay, let’s do this.’ They expected me to go once and then I would go home. But I stayed all day until they closed the slopes. After that I went every day and I loved it.’

Sinner was a natural, far superior to many kids his age, and soon established himself as one of the best junior skiers in Italy.

Skiing was No. 1. Football was No. 2. Tennis was No. 3.

Trophies soon came in, game after game, but at the age of 13, Sinner, who had dropped football at the time, began to feel physically inferior on the slopes.

“One year I won a lot of trophies skiing, but the next year I felt the others were so much stronger physically,” he added.

“I went out twice and didn’t feel comfortable anymore. I really liked tennis because everything was on my side. I had my head under control, which is very hard in skiing.’

One of his early ski coaches praised his “mountain mentality” which he has since been able to apply to tennis. But now he went all-in on tennis.

Sinner has one brother, Mark (right), but the tennis star likes to keep his family life private

He has a devoted fan club called The Carota Boys, who are back in Italy to watch his run

Wise for his age, Sinner chose to leave home at the age of 13 to really make a success of tennis. He left behind friends and family and left, determined to make it pro.

“When I left home at thirteen, I dreamed of turning pro. Seven years later I’m in the top ten,’ he looked back in 2021.

Riccardo Piatti’s academy in Bordighera, Italy was where Sinner would end up and their relationship was almost paternal in nature.

Claudio Pistolesi, the junior world No. 1 in 1985, once told ATPTour.com that Sinner’s unconventional route to the Tour, via the ski slopes, helped – not hindered – him.

“Like Lorenzo Sonego, who played football until he was 14, he broke all the rules that you follow from an academy perspective, having played another sport at a good level,” Pistolesi said. “He adds some lateral skills to tennis by skiing in his moves across the court, and he automatically steps into the ball.”

His rise continued to where the Association of Tennis Professionals named him Newcomer of the Year in 2019 before becoming the first player born in the 2000s to break the top 10 in 2021.

To date, a Wimbledon semifinal is Sinner’s best ever Grand Slam return. It could have come 12 months ago – and probably should have – when he lost two sets to Djokovic, only to stumble and lose in five sets.

Working with Darren Cahill, who used to coach Simona Halep, has undoubtedly taken his game to the next level. Overcoming his hump in the quarterfinals is proof of so much.

“Physically I have definitely improved. I’m much stronger’ said Sinner after reaching the semifinals this week.

“I can stay on the track for many hours without suffering. Also mentally, you go into a slightly different mental side on the court, knowing that you are also a Top 10 player. It’s a little different. You can usually be on the field as a favorite until certain rounds of the tournament.

‘This is also different. I think playing or tennis makes me feel better. If I have to play the slice, now I can play without thinking. For [it] was always a little different. I can go to the net knowing that I have good volleys. I now have some good things in my game and hopefully I can use them in the right way.”

But Sinner, nicknamed ‘The Fox’, is now a new man on and off the field. He is an emerging face of tennis, with his mention on the front of Wimbledon’s 2023 poster causing a stir among Andy Murray’s family.

Sinner made a bold fashion choice for his opening match at Wimbledon as he walked onto Center Court wearing a luxurious, bespoke Gucci duffel bag

It is the first time a player has worn a luxury bag on Wimbledon’s Center Court

A brand ambassador for Gucci, who recently caused a stir at Wimbledon with a striking personalized walk-on bag for one of Sinner’s matches, the Italian is also endorsed by Nike, Head, Rolex, Gucci, Lavazza, Alfa Romeo, Technogym, Parmigiano Reggiano.

Not a big drinker of alcohol and preferring to relax with Coca-Cola, the Italian, German and English speaker is incredibly likeable, without the brashness of a Daniil Medvedev or a Djokovic.

Due to his popularity, he founded a fan club – called the Carota Boys – which has 17,000 followers on Instagram.

Huddled up in carrot costumes in a living room in Italy, Sinner misses them at Wimbledon, but now that they’ve gone viral, it’s another funny quirk of the growing mania surrounding the former ski star.

But now Sinner has a chance to move from the anthems of the tennis cognoscenti – and the love of men dressed as carrots – to the mainstream with a Wimbledon final up for grabs.