Thwock. Thwock. Thwock. Even by the metronomic standards of a tennis practice session, there’s something singularly routine about Jannik Sinner’s. Robotic is probably too uncharitable, as it takes away agency and humanity, both of which are present. But watching Sinner pound ball after ball with a marriage of destructive power and accuracy? It is to watch an engineer at work. Sinner is tennis’s answer to that coworker who shows up reliably, goes about their business with neither look-at-me flourish nor drama, and happens, simply, to be better at their job than anyone else in the office.
Sinner’s practice court could be a collection of clay-covered rectangles at the Foro Italico, a Mussolini-inspired tennis complex in Rome, where pine scents the air and motors hum in the distance. It could be at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in California’s Coachella Valley, where Sinner won tennis’s so-called “fifth major” in March. It could be his home base, the Monte-Carlo Country Club, an Old Europe redoubt above the Mediterranean, where Sinner invited your intrepid correspondent to watch him put in a one-hour session.
