Jannik Sinner is currently ranked the number one tennis player in the world, and was the first Italian to achieve that feat. And yet, at one point in time, he almost became a skier. Having grown up in the German-speaking region of the snow-capped Italian Dolomites, this would not have been an unusual outcome.
“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.” But at the tender age of 13, he made the decision to leave the mountains and head for the Italian Riviera to enroll in a rigorous tennis academy. He has long credited this ambition and work ethic to his parents.
As Jannik looks to claim his first Wimbledon title, get to know Jannik’s parents, Siglinde and Johann.
Meet Jannik Sinner’s mom, Siglinde:
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Jannik Sinner with his father Johann Sinner, his mother Siglinde, and brother Marc after winning the final against Taylor Fritz at the ATP Finals in Turin on November 17, 2024.
When Jannik made the decision to leave home, his parents were working at a local ski lodge at the time, where his mother, Siglinde, was working as a server and his father as a cook. “My parents are special because when I [came] back from school my parents were not there, they were working and I used to go always go to ski,” Sinner told reporters in Italy after he won the Australian Open in 2024. “When I came back home at 4:30 my mom used to be at home but I went to play tennis sometimes, a little bit of [soccer].”
Jannik’s parents are at his matches regularly now, although his mother sometimes avoids them, only out of anxiety for her son. During the Italian Open in Rome in May, a reporter from Gazzetta found Siglinde outside. Sinner had lost the first set, and she left center court, so he asked why she left. “I left at the end of the first set. I’ll take a stroll around here and wait for the match to end. I never watch Jannik’s entire matches live; it rarely happens,” she told the Italian publication. “I prefer to stay in front of the TV. Only in Turin did I manage to watch the final and a bit of the previous rounds. My husband stayed; he never has any qualms.”
Her tense reactions at the French Open a few weeks later went viral, so we can only imagine how she’ll feel during the finals at Wimbledon.
Meet Jannik Sinner’s dad, Johann:
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A proud father looks on after the victory of his son in the semi-final match against Norway’s Casper Ruudat the ATP Finals.
Johann, who also sometimes goes by the name of Hanspeter, was born in the South Tyrol section of Italy. The family now runs their own guest house, Haus Sinner, where Johann helps out in the restaurant when not on the tour with his son. “So they are always working and that’s what I love about them,” Sinner told reporters in 2024. “They’re not changing anything with me. I’m a normal person who I was when I was a very young kid with a big dream and now I’m just 22 years old with still a big dream.”
Notably, however, Sinner’s father missed the French Open this year, which he lost in a nailbiter to Carlos Alcaraz. “My dad was not here because he was working today,” Sinner told reporters at Roland Garros after the match. “Nothing of our success changes in the family.”
Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.
