Who Is Jannik Sinner? Inside the Tennis Champ's Private World
June 28, 2026 104 views

Who Is Jannik Sinner? Inside the Tennis Champ's Private World

By James Mitchell
Jannik Sinner is the No. 1 tennis player in the world and the defending men's singles champion heading into Wimbledon 2026. Find out more about the Italian athlete's private life off the court. What does a tennis player do when the biggest question about him becomes whether he and his chief rival are too good, as in so

Jannik Sinner is the No. 1 tennis player in the world and the defending men's singles champion heading into Wimbledon 2026. Find out more about the Italian athlete's private life off the court.

What does a tennis player do when the biggest question about him becomes whether he and his chief rival are too good, as in so dominant it's bad for their sport?

If he's Jannik Sinner, the top-ranked player in the world and defending Wimbledon champion, he just keeps swinging away. (Usually against current No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz, but the Spaniard will miss Wimbledon while he continues to recover from a wrist injury.)

Sinner did show his mortal side in May when he lost in the second round at the 2026 French Open, bedeviled by the heat. But when he takes Centre Court on June 29 to kick off the 2026 Wimbledon fortnight with his opening match, he'll have some new tricks up his Nike-brand sleeve.

"We've done a lot of work in the past couple of weeks," the 24-year-old, who used an ice vest during training when temperatures at the All England Club climbed into the 90s, said during a June 24 news conference. "We did some testing. We tried to understand what happened. We came to a conclusion, which is very good."

"At the same time," Sinner added, "things can happen. It's an unpredictable sport, but I try to see the positive thing."

For instance, after his draining five-set loss at Roland-Garros, he took a week-long break. "I spent some great time with family and friends," Sinner said, "and that for me was the most important because I don’t have much time to do that."

The four-time Grand Slam winner had "recovered well" physically since, Sinner told Vogue in an interview published June 23. "But the most important thing for me is to be in a good spot mentally."

While his schedule would basically be "tennis, come back to the house, sleep, repeat," as a Global Brand Ambassador for Gucci his itinerary also included a June 22 dinner hosted by the Italian fashion house in his honor at Claridge's.

Describing his personal style as "very simple and elegant," the 6-foot-3 athlete is very much a product of his German-speaking hometown of Sexten, in the mountainous South Tyrol province of northern Italy.

As a child, he "had a lot of freedom, a lot of time outside," he said, "and a lot of security." And a lot of other pursuits besides tennis.

“Where I am from, the first sport is skiing,” Sinner told Forbes in 2020. “Then my dad came to me, gave me a racket, and I was like 2-and-a-half years old...I just played a little bit to enjoy everything.”

He was a champion junior skier, but at 13 he left home to train at the Piatti Tennis Centre in Bordighera, hundreds of miles away.

"The truth is, as soon as I got there, I started crying," Sinner told Vanity Fair Italia in 2024 (as translated into English). "I called [my parents] after two hours, and they must have thought, 'Here, we have to go get him.' But instead, I told them to stay calm, that everything was fine."

After winning the 2026 Madrid Open on Mother's Day, he called mom Siglinde Sinner, who waitressed at a ski lodge when he was a kid, and his dad Hanspeter Sinner, the lodge's chef, "a true inspiration."

"I just try to be a little bit like them," he said during a post-match news conference, "because then I know that I'm a good person.”

But while his parents and older brother Marc Sinner are often cheering him on at tournaments, behind the scenes, he told Vogue, "We never mention tennis—we always talk about different things."

He lives in Monaco now, but not least due to having moved away at such a young age, he tries to get back to Italy as much as he can to see his family and the same friends he's had since childhood.

"These days I'm more and more interested in being in calm places," Sinner said. "I feel more comfortable there than in busy environments."

He's also very private, not least to shield his loved ones, telling Vanity Fair Italia, "They helped me, when I was young, to gain self-confidence, and today in some way I want to protect them."

And when it comes to romance, “Whether or not I am with a girl will never be known on social media, because I want to keep my private life private,” Sinner told La Repubblica in 2023. “I don’t need to post a photo to show whether I’m engaged. I never posted pictures with my parents, maybe one with my brother."

But when Sinner won the 2025 Vienna Open in October, he made it clear that Danish model Laila Hasanovic was sitting in his box all week for a reason.

"Everyone here, with family, my girlfriend, friends," he said, "to my whole team and also those watching at home, thank you so much for the support.”

The 2019 Miss Universe Denmark finalist was most recently spotted watching him win the Italian Open in May.

Sinner, who previously dated Russian tennis player Anna Kalinskaya, has admitted that it's "not easy" to maintain a relationship with his schedule.

"I travel a lot and during tournaments I'm very focused," he told Vanity Fair Italia. "But I think it's a wonderful thing when you find the right love...And then, if you think about it, the best tennis players in the world all have wives and children."

Yet despite having found a good match, he remains singularly focused on his game, which in turn makes his decompression time extra important as well. "It's very important to switch off the mind," Sinner told Vogue, "so when I have time I will go play some golf, build some Legos or watch Formula 1."

While he and his brother are building a 10,000-piece Eiffel Tower with those Legos, he's also a huge soccer fan and is following the World Cup along with the rest of the planet. "Tennis is important, of course," he said, "but so is taking your mind off it."

As Wimbledon 2026 gets underway, see which other tennis stars have made an off-court love match:

Few people are strong enough to volley back and forth with the tennis great. But Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian showed off some real skills during their first 2015 date. With Williams' assistant and agent tagging along, "They just bombarded me with questions—it was like two hours of interrogation," he recounted in an episode of her 2024 ESPN+ docuseries In The Arena. "'Do I have kids? Am I married?' Nothing was off limits."

Soon after, the answer to both was a firm yes, the pair welcoming daughter Olympia in 2017 before marrying later that year. (Daughter Adira rounded out the team in 2023.) 

"Having someone as special as Serena as a partner is a consistent reminder of self-improvement," the tech entrepreneur explained to E! News in 2023. "I knew I have found someone I was going to spend the rest of my life with because she was someone who I knew I would never outgrow."

The seven-time Grand Slam winner nearly faulted on her forever with Italian actor-producer Andrea Preti. In Lake Como with her sisters, she received a last-minute invite to the Gucci show at the 2024 Milan Fashion Week, she recounted to Vogue ahead of their December 2025 vows, "and decided to go on a whim, and Andrea was tired. Neither of us was planning on being there."

But he aced his pick-up line and soon after they found themselves roaming the streets of London. Following those initial dates, detailed Venus, "I just knew I was going to marry him. People always say they just know, and I just knew." 

Even as the top player in the world, the Italian athlete knew he could ace a strong relationship. "Of course it's not easy, I travel a lot and during tournaments I'm very focused," he noted to Vanity Fair Italia in 2024. "But I think it's a wonderful thing when you find the right love. If you think about it, the best tennis players in the world all have wives and children."

And he seems to have met his match in Danish model Laila Hasanovic. Hard launching their romance in his 2025 Vienna Open victory speech, Sinner shared, "To understand me at times, it is not easy, but thank you for putting in the effort. Everyone here, with family, my girlfriend, friends."

Well before the No. 4-ranked athlete wed fellow New York native Taylor Gahagen in 2021, they were in the same circuit. After Gahagen earned his MBA, he took a job working for her parents, who happen to own the Buffalo Bills. 

And though he no longer holds court at Pegula Sports and Entertainment, he's still playing proverbial doubles with Pegula, serving as vice president of her skincare brand Ready 24 and helping run their charity, A Lending Paw. "We wanted to help people afford service dogs," Pegula told Vogue of their mission. "Not only is it about dogs helping people, it’s about people helping dogs, because we only work with rescues. It goes both ways."

Even after the WTA's current top player won the Brisbane International tennis tournament in January 2026, she continued to serve. "Thank you to my boyfriend," the Belarusian athlete shared, adding pointedly to Georgios Frangulis, "hopefully soon I can call you something else." 

Fortunately, the Brazilian businessman didn't drop the ball. Two months later, he popped the question to his partner of two years with a stunning 12-carat custom diamond. "It was super cute," the Oakberry founder acknowledged in a June 2026 episode of the Open Residency podcast, "but I was already planning to propose long before that." 

A new sporting power couple emerged when the tennis player and soccer star Trinity Rodman sealed their relationship with a kiss on Instagram in March 2025. 

And she's been a stalwart supporter throughout the Grand Slam tournaments, including slamming reporters who invoked her estranged dad Dennis Rodman.

“For Ben’s matches he has his family there as his support system, which includes his dad,” Rodman wrote on a July 2025 Instagram story, calling out the Wimbledon broadcasters for their commentary about her family. “My dads not even in MY life no need to bring him up during HIS matches when I don’t even want him talked about during mine.”

After the pair met on Raya, Fritz made his relationship with Morgan Riddle official in 2020 with the influencer continue to root him on as he worked his wayup the ATP rankings.

“I met him and started travelling with him on the tour a few months later,” she told E! News in 2024. “And now, it’s been almost four years of that.”

However, in April 2026, Riddle confirmed that she and Fritz—who was married to fellow tennis player Raquel Pedraza from 2016 to 2019 and welcomed son Jordan in 2017—had broken up after six years together.

For years, the two-time Grand Slam champ lobbed away any stories of her personal life. 

“I think I felt like I just, some parts of myself I love to share and then some parts I think I just keep to myself,” she told People in March 2023. “So I do feel like my life is a little bit in my hands too.” 

Still, boyfriend Jalen Sera—an Atlanta-based musician whose fourth-grade teacher was coincidentally Gauff’s mom—has proven to be an important sounding board.

"Last night, I started a little bit, but honestly, I just called my boyfriend," Gauff told reporters about her 2023 US Open Win. "And I told him let’s talk until it's time to go to sleep so we spoke until 1:00 am and then I went to sleep."

Dimitrov and Eiza González made their relationship Instagram official in May 2025, just one month after sparking romance rumors. And since then, the Baby Driver star hasn’t held back in showing her support for the athlete—including after he had to withdraw from the Wimbledon in early July 2025 due to a mid-match injury. 

“Love of my life. I couldn’t be more proud of you,” González wrote on her Instagram Story at the time. "This is just a moment that will pass and will make you even stronger. But watching you today alongside the world was a reminder of who YOU are. You’re a winner. We all saw it. And you’ll do it again. I love you."

After almost five years of dating, the tennis stars announced their engagement in 2024, with Boulter captioning the happy moment, “We’ve been keeping a small secret.” 

The pair met in 2020 at a hotel where they were both staying. "We bumped into each other at six in the morning and ended up getting a coffee," Boulter recalled to the Sydney Morning Herald in June 2024. "From that moment, I knew I was in it for the long haul."

In January 2025, the four-time Grand Slam champion confirmed her breakup with rapper Cordae after five years together. And while emphasizing that they remain friends, she expressed gratitude over their romance as it brought them their 2023 arrival little girl Shai

"Honestly really glad that our paths crossed because my daughter is my biggest blessing," Osaka wrote at the time. "And I was able to grow a lot from our experiences together."

Paul may have the skills on the court, but his fiancée Paige Lorenze is a go-to coach when it comes to life outside the sport.

"She's been on me about, I guess it’s self-care," Paul told People in April 2025 of the woman he partnered up with in 2022."But just putting on more sunscreen and doing moisturizer at night."

Still, the Dairy Boy founder is no stranger to picking up a racket. "I'm not going to lie, I’m pretty impressed," Paul gushed about her tennis game. "She plays pretty good, she has the strokes down. She knows what she’s doing on the court."

The tennis stars are in sync on and off the court. In fact, they met after Svitolina won the 2018 WTA Finals in Singapore, going on to tie the knot in July 2021. A little over a year later, they welcomed their baby girl Skaï.

"I had the most amazing night of my life, which ended with the most beautiful girl around 6:00 am. Elina was strong and brave," Monfils wrote on Instagram in October 2022. "I can't thx enough, my wife, and God, for this special moment. Welcome to the world, my little princess Skaï."