Novak Djokovic has won his semi-final against Italy’s 21-year-old eighth seed Jannik Sinner, to set up a possible record-equalling eighth Wimbledon men’s singles title on Sunday.
The Serb won in straight sets in a very different match to the semi-final a year ago when Sinner gave Djokovic an almighty scare, surging to a two-set lead before Djokovic fought back.
Both men have strong connections to skiing, with Djokovic coming from a family of ski racers and instructors while Sinner spent large parts of his childhood in the mountains, becoming of one of Italy’s most promising ski racers, before deciding to focus solely on his tennis career.
“Skiing is quite a common sport to get into from where I am. There are a lot of ski slopes just literally outside of my front door,” Sinner told ATPTour.com. “I remember the first time I went skiing. My brother was having some lessons and I saw him and I wanted to go but my mum told me ‘Not today’.
“I kept crying to her and asking and then she said ‘OK, let’s do this’. They were expecting me to go once and then I would go home. But I stayed all day until they closed the slopes. Then I went every day and loved it.”
Sinner said tennis was his third favourite sport in his younger childhood, after football and skiing, in which he won numerous trophies as a child racer between the ages of eight and 12. However, by 13, tennis became a priority.
Although Djokovic and Sinner both still hit the slopes when they can, the great Swiss skier Roger Federer famously avoided skiing during his career for fear of injury
He did though play a tennis match at the Jungfraujoch above Grindelwald and Wengen in Switzerland in 2014 against the famous former US downhill ski racer, Lindsey Vonn.
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