section_path: Early life and background
section_name: Early life and background
paragraph_text: Early life and background
  
  Jannik Sinner was born 16 August 2001 to Hanspeter and Siglinde Sinner in Innichen in the province of South Tyrol in Northern Italy. His mother tongue is German. He grew up in the town of Sexten in the Dolomites, the family hometown, where his father worked as a chef and his mother as a waitress at a ski lodge. He has an older adopted brother, Mark, who was born in Russia. Sinner began both skiing and playing tennis at age three. He did his first ski races in first grade, played his first tennis tournament at age five. He was one of Italy's top junior skiers from seven to 12 years old, winning a national championship in giant slalom at age seven in 2008 and becoming a national runner-up at age 11 in 2012.
  
  While training in skiing Sinner gave up tennis for a year at age seven before his father pushed him to return to the sport. When he resumed playing, Heribert Mayr was his first regular coach. Sinner's grandfather drove him to Tennis San Giorgio early in the morning, where Sinner had to take individual lessons with Mayr as no child his age there was at his level and he was much faster than older children. Nonetheless, tennis was still only his third priority, behind skiing and football. In the mornings he competed in ski races and in the afternoons he played football matches for AFC Sexten (Youth).
  
  At age 13, Sinner gave up skiing and football in favour of tennis due to his physique; he was tall, thin, and weighed only 35 kilograms. He also preferred competing in an individual sport directly against an opponent and having more control over the outcome. He moved on his own to Bordighera in Liguria, on the Italian Riviera, to train at the Piatti Tennis Center under Riccardo Piatti and Massimo Sartori, a decision his parents supported. There, Sinner lived with the family of Luka Cvjetković, one of his coaches, and later moved out to share an apartment with two boys. Before he began training in tennis full-time with Piatti, he had been playing only twice a week. He graduated from the Walther Institute, a private economics school in Bolzano.
  
  Jannik Sinner was born 16 August 2001 to Hanspeter and Siglinde Sinner in Innichen in the province of South Tyrol in Northern Italy. His mother tongue is German. He grew up in the town of Sexten in the Dolomites, the family hometown, where his father worked as a chef and his mother as a waitress at a ski lodge. He has an older adopted brother, Mark, who was born in Russia. Sinner began both skiing and playing tennis at age three. He did his first ski races in first grade, played his first tennis tournament at age five. He was one of Italy's top junior skiers from seven to 12 years old, winning a national championship in giant slalom at age seven in 2008 and becoming a national runner-up at age 11 in 2012.
  
  While training in skiing Sinner gave up tennis for a year at age seven before his father pushed him to return to the sport. When he resumed playing, Heribert Mayr was his first regular coach. Sinner's grandfather drove him to Tennis San Giorgio early in the morning, where Sinner had to take individual lessons with Mayr as no child his age there was at his level and he was much faster than older children. Nonetheless, tennis was still only his third priority, behind skiing and football. In the mornings he competed in ski races and in the afternoons he played football matches for AFC Sexten (Youth).
  
  At age 13, Sinner gave up skiing and football in favour of tennis due to his physique; he was tall, thin, and weighed only 35 kilograms. He also preferred competing in an individual sport directly against an opponent and having more control over the outcome. He moved on his own to Bordighera in Liguria, on the Italian Riviera, to train at the Piatti Tennis Center under Riccardo Piatti and Massimo Sartori, a decision his parents supported. There, Sinner lived with the family of Luka Cvjetković, one of his coaches, and later moved out to share an apartment with two boys. Before he began training in tennis full-time with Piatti, he had been playing only twice a week. He graduated from the Walther Institute, a private economics school in Bolzano.