Italy celebrates its “Tennis King” Jannik Sinner

Sinner dedicated himself to his aunt’s US Open victory

And as “normal” as the still 23-year-old athlete with the tousled red-blonde hair is, at the moment of his great triumph he first thought of his sick aunt.

“Real life” is something different from sport, Sinner said thoughtfully a few hours after his second Grand Slam triumph: “We travel a lot, so it is difficult to spend time with the people you really love.” Yes, it was and still is a really difficult moment.

In his winning interview before the court, he made it public that his aunt was not well: “I don’t know how much longer I’ll have her in my life. It’s nice that I can share a positive moment with her.”

And so Sinner, who together with Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz is likely to shape the future of the sport and who has left Alexander Zverev’s generation a little behind for the time being, left the Big Apple with little enthusiasm despite his US Open title.

In terms of sport, however, he left no doubt about it, despite all the loud background noise in New York, that he is rightly at the top of the tennis world.