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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo

‘Everyone is crazy about tennis’: Sinner’s success inspires Italy to pick up rackets

Tennis Italy Jannik Sinner Angelo Binaghi ATP Football
Jannik Sinner in action at the Davis Cup: he crouches on one foot to reach the ball with a forehand shot. He is wearing a blue cap and shirt with the Italian flag on it.
The rise of Jannik Sinner, now the world men’s No 1, has inspired Italians to take up tennis: one club president describes the ‘Sinner effect’. Photograph: Alvaro Diaz/Europa Press/Getty Images

At the age of 47, diehard AC Milan fan Ninni Licata has hung up his football boots in exchange for a tennis racket.

Like thousands of Italians in recent years, Licata has been unable to resist the lure of a game that for years had been relegated to the sidelines of the country’s national sports, overshadowed by football and Formula One.

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