Vagnozzi, on Sinner and his doping case: "The way of handling it at 23 has been exceptional"

Mónica Barberán Munera | 12 Sep 2024 | 12.30

Jannik Sinner, Simone Vagnozzi, and Darren Cahill at the US Open 2024. Photo: Getty

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Jannik Sinner had to face tough days before the last Grand Slam of the season. Days that were clouded by the doping issue that hovered over the Italian and his team. Once his innocence was acknowledged, the world number 1 had to deal with opinions and criticisms from all sides, something that jeopardized his performance at the US Open. However, Sinner managed to win his second major, showing the great mental strength he has cultivated in recent times.

His coach, Simone Vagnozzi, spoke precisely about how winning in New York meant lifting a great weight off their shoulders. "The victory in Australia was an explosive bomb. It was the first Slam, recovering from a two-set disadvantage. Since Melbourne, Jannik knows himself better, knows how he feels in certain matches, and is able to control the moments. The ability to manage the game comes from tactical and emotional growth. His mental strength is simply incredible.

In New York, we experienced a sense of liberation due to everything that had happened”, he said in an interview for Corriere dello Sport. Perhaps this one was more special than the first due to the circumstances, but one thing is clear: Jannik's mental strength transcends borders. The Italian showed what the best players are made of, a mix of quality with a lot of brains.

A great team around him and the certainty of having done nothing wrong

The fear that the doping issue would influence his state of mind took hold of Vagnozzi and Darren Cahill. From the start, they were responsible for ensuring that none of that affected their protege, trying to focus on what really mattered: tennis. “In the past months, we tried to do our part, speaking as little as possible, if not the minimum, about the doping issue with Jannik. The goal was to focus on the work. We did our part, but the great credit goes to Jannik because ultimately, he was the one who stepped onto the court," Vagnozzi confessed.

The entire team was impressed by how Sinner handled these months and how he dealt with the press and reactions from the locker room when his positive doping test became public: “Having no guilt and being aware it was the most important aspect to overcome that long and complicated period. It has been an emotional rollercoaster, but the way he handled it at 23 was exceptional. He didn't face too many attacks from his peers (I must say few, three or four). You can't control people; you have to follow your own path. Everyone knows the guy Jannik is, and in any case, all you had to do was read the newspapers to understand what happened.".

Thus, Vagnozzi acknowledged the great role both he and Darren assumed to prevent Jannik from being surrounded by harmful thoughts as much as possible, and thus, affecting his tennis. “Darren and I had to understand the moments and try to help him as much as possible. If normally you think two or three times before expressing an idea, in those months, it was necessary to do it up to 10 times. We tried to make him live as best as he could, with fewer negative thoughts in his head. It was a complicated situation; we couldn't talk about it with anyone outside the team; it was a first time for all of us."

This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Vagnozzi, sobre Sinner y su caso de dopaje: "La manera de manejarlo con 23 años ha sido excepcional"