Incredible (and incredibly unfair) what some Italian newspapers and media headlines against Jannik Sinner
Incredible (and incredibly unfair) what some Italian newspapers and media headlines against Jannik Sinner. The controversy still concerns the Italian tennis player’s refusal to participate in the Davis Cup matches at the end of September.
Sinner had come from a very tough summer physically, and the match lost against Alexander Zverev at the US Open – a real battle – had seen Jannik leave very tired physically. The humid conditions at Flushing Meadows also affected the young Italian.
Who decided to recover from his efforts by jumping to the Davis Cup.
An understandable choice, considering how much Sinner played from Wimbledon to New York. With his first historic title at the ATP Masters 1000 in Toronto and his first Slam semifinal in London in between.
Great successes, but which are evidently not enough for the ravenous mouths of the Italian media.
Despite his very young age, Sinner has already done a lot for Italian tennis. The media in his country would do well to support their young talent, rather than criticizing him with questionable and incomprehensible accusations.
The incomprehensible criticisms of the Italian media against Sinner
The incomprehensible words that appeared in the latest issue of Sportweek, the weekly magazine of the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport, edited by Pier Bergonzi, leave no room for misunderstanding.
The article discussed the absence of Jannik Sinner during the Davis Cup phases in which Italy faced Canada, Chile and Sweden for a place in the Malaga Finals. This decision has in fact generated a chaos of comments coming from newspapers and social media, which has overwhelmed the Italian, towards whom all sorts of criticism has been launched.
Pier Bergonzi’s recent article in Sportweek dedicated to Jannik Sinner, which already from the title promises great controversy.
After recalling Tokyo 2021, the Italian is accused of thinking only of his individuality, also with an inconsistent reference to the various fifth set defeats suffered in recent times: “You lose a few training sessions, but you grow humanly and maybe you find the resources to win that decisive point at the end of the labyrinth of a fifth set.
We don’t like tennis made only of obsessive training and calculations to climb the ranking steps.”
Then the final sentence: “Sinner is an absolute talent of our sport, the day he learns to give back to tennis some of what he has received he will be able to become a great champion.”
The even more incomprehensible words of Giancarlo Dotto go in the same direction and with greater intensity, again for Sportweek, who stated: “If Jannik apologized, not to the Italians, but to himself, it would be like a Roland Garros and a Wimbledon combined.” Sinner’s decision, it has been said, was not liked by many, and great exponents of Italian tennis such as Pietrangeli, Panatta and Barazzutti were no exception, fundamental and essential elements of Davis’ team, each in his own time and in his own way.
Davis’ qualification for the Finals did not therefore extinguish the internal and external controversies surrounding the national team, which had also been shaken in recent days by the disagreements between Filippo Volandri, Fabio Fognini and Corrado Barazzutti.
