Jannik Sinner won't win the Grand Slam. At least not this year, after his first, incredibly tough test fell to the wayside, thanks to the "fault" of a sporting icon, a 38-year-and-eight-month-old warrior dreaming of his twenty-fifth victory in this special series of tournaments. A beautiful, almost smiling, surrender from the Italian tennis team—and not only—that knows, on that scorching, hard, concrete surface of Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne Park's Centre Court, a defeat that hasn't happened in nearly three years. The red-haired Italian seemed unbeatable, but tennis proves to be a machine that crushes everyone.
"Now I have to figure out what to improve," he said at 2 a.m. in the interview room. His head in his hands. And whispered by someone who spent sixty-six weeks on top of the world, it helps us understand the culture of sport, of challenge, of detail. And what it takes, mentally, to get back to the top, to shout to the world that you can win even after a heavy, global defeat. And never mind if someone else takes the Grand Slam: he'll have to win in Australia, Paris, London, and New York. He'll try again. Falling and getting back up, right away, after all—as Sinner said in recent days—is just a tennis match.
