Jannik Sinner – Wimbledon Champion Who Started as a Ski Racer
13th July 2025
The new Wimbledon champion was first a young Italian ski racer with a bright future ahead of him before he swapped his skis for a tennis racket. UPDATED
Jannik Sinner comes from the snow-capped Dolomites in the Sud Tirol in northern Italy.
He was a promising racer and may well have made the Italian team as he showed massive potential.
The young Italian was a talented skier from the age of three.
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At eight, he won the national championship in giant slalom and was a national runner-up at 12 years old.
No mean feat.
His ski potential was enormous and it is where he developed his competitive streak.
However, at 13 years old he decided to focus on tennis and moved to Bordighera to train for tennis.
“The reason why I chose tennis was, in tennis you can make mistakes.
“You can lose points but you can still win the match,” Jannik told Vogue in 2024.
“In skiing, if you make one mistake, one big mistake, you cannot win.”
He has long credited his ambition, and work ethic, to his parents who worked in a ski lodge in the Dolomites – his mother a waitress and his father a cook.
His Wimbledon victory has been recognised by the US skier, Lindsey Vonn.
Sinner remains a passionate skier.
📍Sexten 🏔
Some deserved relax ⛷️
Mental batteries 📈Forza 🦊 pic.twitter.com/Uo1ezufHoX
— Janniksin_Updates (@JannikSinner_Up) February 22, 2025
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