“In skiing, if you make one mistake, one big mistake, you cannot win.”
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Italian tennis star Jannik Sinner is on top of the world after defeating Carlos Alcaraz at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships on July 13, 2025.
Sinner, who hails from the South Tyrolean village of Innichenm, is only 23 years old. With this latest win, he now boasts four Grand Slam titles and 20 ATP Tour victories—a remarkable achievement for someone so young. While his rise in tennis is still gaining momentum, did you know that as a child, he nearly chose an entirely different sport?
Skiing was actually his first love—not tennis.
With parents employed at a nearby ski resort and a town heavily shaped by tourism and winter sports, it’s no surprise that Sinner began skiing early. Surrounded by the slopes, he quickly found his footing.
In 2008, at just seven years old, Sinner won a Juniors National Championship in Giant Slalom. By 2012, he secured a runner-up finish at age 11. He also loved football (soccer in the U.S.), making tennis only his third favorite sport growing up.
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In a 2024 Vogue interview, Jannik Sinner revealed that his transition from skiing to tennis was largely influenced by his slender frame.
I was winning a lot when I was young in skiing, and in tennis I never won, And then slowly I started to lose in skiing, because physically I was not ready to compete. I was always quite skinny and everything.
he told Vogue
Sinner also explained why tennis ultimately appealed to him more than skiing:
The reason why I chose tennis was, in tennis you can make mistakes. You can lose points but you can still win the match. In skiing, if you make one mistake, one big mistake, you cannot win.
His comments highlight the distinct nature of both sports. In skiing, athletes compete against the entire field at once. Tennis, on the other hand, especially in singles, is one-on-one, where the pressure and margins play out differently.
During the 2024 US Open, Sinner spoke about how skiing shaped his mindset on the court.
But I feel like [skiing] has impacted me more on the mental side, because you have a completely different mentality by skiing, he said. “In skiing you make one mistake and you just can’t win the race anymore. In tennis, you can make loads of mistakes and still win the race… Skiing is a nice sport though.
he said
Even though he chose a different path, Sinner hasn’t left skiing behind entirely. After his Wimbledon triumph, friend and fellow tennis enthusiast Lindsey Vonn congratulated him on social media, sharing several photos from a recent ski outing they enjoyed together.
While tennis is more globally popular than skiing, the two sports share a surprising amount of overlap in terms of shared fanbases and athletes who enjoy both.
Source: Powder