"Jannik Sinner had this curly red hair as a 14-year-old" - Novak Djokovic recalls practicing with Italian at former coach Riccardo Piatti's academy

Novak Djokovic recently recounted his first meeting with the 2024 Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner. The Serb said he had traded hits with the Italian at his former coach Riccardo Piatti's tennis academy when Sinner was a teenager, and he came out very impressed with what he saw.

Jannik Sinner won his maiden Major title in scintillating fashion on Sunday, January 28, coming back from a two-sets-to-love deficit to beat Daniil Medvedev 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 in the Melbourne final. With his victory, the Italian became the second 2000s-born male player after Carlos Alcaraz to reign supreme at a Grand Slam tournament.

In that context, the social media handle of TennisTV - ATP's prime streaming service, shared a recent video of Novak Djokovic talking about Jannik Sinner a few months before the latter's triumph in Melbourne.

The Serb began by showering high praise on the Italian's coach, Darren Cahill, and the rest of his team, before reminiscing about practicing with him at the Piatti Tennis Academy in Italy a few years ago.

Djokovic couldn't help but smile as he recounted a teen Sinner with long, curly locks of red hair. The 36-year-old also insisted that the Italian had immaculate timing on his groundstrokes even back then.

"Well, I see someone that has been knocking on the door of a Grand Slam final for a really few years, someone that has completed his game so well," Djokovic said to TennisTV. "Darren Cahill, great team, great coach, he's as professional, as dedicated as you can get in the tennis world, very nice guy."

"I've known him since he was very young and we trained at the Piatti Tennis Academy in Italy, when Piatti was his coach, so I remember him when he had this curly kind of red hair as a 14-year-old, and you could already see back then that he's timing the ball so well," he added.

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"Italy has a great tennis tradition and deserves to have a player like Jannik Sinner" - Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner embrace at the 2024 Australian Open

Novak Djokovic also expressed satisfaction at Italy finally having a tennis player in the top echelons of the sport. Djokovic was quoted as saying to TennisTV:

"I'm really glad for him because he's a very nice guy, I'm glad for Italian tennis obviously. They've been looking for a top-five player for many years and you know, Italy has a great tennis tradition and deserves to have a player like Jannik, who is very young and he's got a very bright future, no doubt, ahead of him."

Towards the end of the segment, the 36-year-old asserted that the Australian Open champion would be a contender for many Major titles in the future.

"He has had the best year of his career, and I'm sure that we can expect him to fight for big Grand Slam trophies in the years to come," he added.