After having sacked his fitness coach and physiotherapist after the doping controversy, Jannik Sinner has finally found a replacement for the two posts in his team.
He appointed Marco Panichi and Ulises Badio as his new fitness coach and physiotherapist respectively. Both of them have worked with the 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic in the past, making their appointment even more special for the Italian.
Announcing the news, Sinner took to his Instagram and shared a picture with both of them while captioning it, “Welcome to the team Marco and Ulises.”
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Panichi worked with Djokovic till April this year before the latter announced that he was parting ways with the Italian after having achieved various titles and broken multiple records.
While making the announcement on his social media, he shared a series of pictures with Panichi and paired it with an emotional caption.
“Grazie Romanista (as Goran calls you) for all the energy, effort and time you invested in making me the best possible player and person I can be. Much love and I will see you soon in Roma. Forzaaaa,” wrote the Serb while thanking Marco for his services.
On the other hand, his association with Badio came to an end 2 years ago, before the 10-time Australian Open champion started the first Grand Slam campaign in 2022.
Sinner’s change in the team was invoked by the news of his having tested positive for two doping tests in March, came out. This prompted the tennis world to ask several questions about the Italian, especially because he managed to escape a provisional ban during the investigation.
However, he was declared innocent by an independent committee before the US Open in August. But since the ATP didn’t disclose the news before his innocence was declared, various eyebrows were raised at Sinner’s intentions.
This prompted him to sack his fitness coach Umberto Ferrara and physiotherapist Giacomo Naldi as they were the sources of the transfer of Clostebol into his body.
Despite not having a fitness coach and physiotherapist, Sinner managed to clinch the 2024 US Open title, taking his total tally of Grand Slams to two. With this, he clinched both the hard-court major titles of the year, after having won the Australian Open earlier this year.
Thus, due to his speciality on hard courts and a punchy baseline game, he is considered to be the next Djokovic. And now, it will be interesting to see how he manages to make full use of his two new teammates, who have a proven success rate with Djokovic.
But at the same time, it is a known fact that Sinner is a huge Roger Federer fan. So his playing style has a few elements of the Swiss’ game as well, making him a mix of both Federer and Djokovic.
Thus, it will be interesting to see how he manages to evolve with two new teammates by his side, who have spent a long time with Djokovic and have a proven success rate as well.
