Jannik Sinner: On Resilience

 

by R.B. Eustace

It was ages I wouldn’t care about tennis. I missed the career of amazing players like Nadal and Djokovic. I couldn’t even remember the rules of a sport I had loved so much as a kid. Then, last year I heard about Jannik Sinner. I saw a few images where he would celebrate another winning shot by raising his fist up in the air as if to shout - not to his opponent but to a more distinguished audience probably seating high up in the sky: there you go, I told you so, I am the best!

I was curious and I decided to get to know this player better: some time later he and his team mates won the Davis Cup and subsequently Sinner played in Australia. The final duel with Medvedev was the occasion that really got me thinking: against all odds, how can one change the outcome of a 5 set match against a worthy contender, when you have already lost two sets, you are about to lose the third, and the only chance you got is getting it right with the ball you are just about to nervously serve? I don’t know how one can do that, but Sinner did it and from that moment on he became almost unbeatable. He went on to win his first Grand Slam.

As time passed by I became addicted to Sinner's tennis and in order to watch the live matches I would not mind paying the high fees associated with modern sporting events. I quickly realized that there was something different about this young fellow: Sinner was a natural born champion! Paradoxically I fully comprehended this status-quo in a very difficult moment for his career, and as such the confusion was mainly mine: why was he not performing as he should have? What was wrong with this very healthy young athlete? Why did he look so fatigued on the field? At that time neither I nor the vast majority of fans knew about the so-called doping-issue and it was hard to figure out what was going on. Some experts eagerly concluded that he was going to be another tennis disappointment and they would quickly dismiss his many field performances, in spite of them being still pretty damn good.

Other weeks went by and eventually the truth about the failed anti-doping tests was out. Thank God! They say the truth makes you free and unquestionably the truth made Sinner free. Suddenly the new world number 1 – because this was his ranking now – quickly recovered and went on to collect a new fresh streak of victories. Furthermore, Sinner seemed to be a rare case where the heavy victories came after the failed anti-doping tests, not before!  Last but not least, a few days ago a well-deserved victory of the Six Kings Slam in Saudi Arabia, brought him a substantial prize: 6 million dollars! But with that money came more criticism. In truth I wondered why. As far as I can see modern tennis is a liquid sport: you can quickly move from very low rankings to the top. All one needs to do is keep winning, just like Sinner did. So what was the problem with all those fault-finders and attackers?

All right, I will admit I am Sinner-biased now – I follow him with the benevolent eye of a most caring mother - but what I just described is pretty much what is happening within modern tennis were players must be pretty skilled, must hit the ball hard, must rush the-Flash-style from one side of the court to the other, and when defeated must forget quickly thus showing new levels of resilience. And here we are back to Sinner. 

At a certain stage I got so caught up with his progress, that one night I had quite an oneiric experience! I could only describe this experience as a quantum trip back to what seemed to be the last one of his past lives. All of a sudden, it felt like I was in Italy during the Renaissance period. The location felt like somewhere in Tuscany, a long distance from Sinner’s birth-place. There was a porch even if I could only see a portion of it, and there was a kid who may have been 10-12 years old. Even if I could not see him, I understood the kid was kind of sick, he could not walk and therefore he was stuck in that place. Still, he had a lovely smile on his face and a some sort of a toy ball in his hands. My understanding from that dream was that he would play by throwing that ball into the garden. I never saw who would bring the precious toy back (I guess in those times it may have indeed been the only ball owned by this child!) since he could not move, nor I got to know more about what type of progress he made, perhaps hitting selected spots of the yard, but that is the nature of dreams!

I must confess I thought of this oneiric experience a lot, even if he did relate to another human being! I have even got the shock of my life when – within the fabulous trailer of the Six Kings Slam – I saw Sinner dressed up like a true Renaissance Man. Coincidence I was told! On the other hand, Quantum Philosophy would state that whatever skill we learn over the many lives of our soul that skill one day may come in handy; likewise, if you spend a lifetime stuck in your porch you may end up travelling the world in the next one. But these are not the reasons for which I felt the need to write about Sinner today.

In fact, I am writing about this exceptional athlete because of the incredible resilience quality showed within his tennis. Due to many stupid errors – to which even Sinner is prone – it is not rare for Jannik to suffer 0-40 drawbacks, situations where another fault would inevitably lead to a break; still, in the case of Sinner it becomes even rarer the game where he doesn’t manage to recover and subsequently win that game. What is really astonishing about this tennis player is therefore a relentlessness skill which he can master like nobody else. When a sporting quality is so strong it inevitably stems from a quality of Being, and when a quality of Being is such that cannot go unnoticed, it inherently becomes something worth learning and, incidentally, it is worth more than 6 million dollars!

Jannik Sinner’s resilience quality is by far the best life lesson I have learnt from watching his tennis. I will never be capable of refining this trait within me at that level, but knowing that he can it does help out somehow. It does help to know that in principle all of us can quickly recover from any difficulties and become tougher. In a modern age in which so many so-called influencers do not influence anything, long live Jannik Sinner the young, the wise, the resilient soul of many life times.  

Note: Workings are in progress on this site!