Watch: Jannik Sinner Reveals Relationship Status After Brooks Nader Dating Rumors
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.”
Ewen Gavet/Icon Sport via Getty Images
The four-time Grand Slam winner had “recovered well” physically since, Sinner told Voguein 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.
Kierra Thorn/Getty Images for Gucci
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.”
Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Getty Images
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.”
Giampiero Sposito/Getty Images
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.”
Julian Finney/Getty Images
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.”
Marleen Fouchier/BSR Agency/Getty Images
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:
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for W+P
Alessandro Levati/Getty Images for Dsquared2
Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
VCG/VCG via Getty Images
Instagram/@BenShelton
Tim Clayton/Getty Images
Steve Granitz / FilmMagic / Alexander Tamargo / Getty Images for Lacoste
Instagram/@Katiecboulter
Robert Prange/Getty Images
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Gael Monfils/Instagram
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
