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File image of world no 1 tennis player Jannik Sinner. (PHOTO: AP)
When does a sportsperson become a genuine star? Perhaps, when magazines start writing about the player’s ice cream preferences. Jannik Sinner seems to be at that stage in his career now. Like Virat Kohli’s stardom sort of coincided when his favourite old haunt of Chole Bhature went viral at one stage.
Sinner is unsurprisingly cruising along at the US Open, hailed as “AI generated player” by Alexander Bublik, who also provided the moment of the tournament thus far when he said “I am not bad, but you are GOAT” when shaking hands after being routed in straight sets.
But it’s his ice cream choices that are the talk of the town in his hometown. The weekly magazine Dipiù has met up with the owner of the ice cream shop frequented by Sinner and spilt the creamy secrets.
For starters, Sinner has two firm choices, though he does, like the rest of us, take free tasty nibbles of other flavours.
“Sinner knows what he’s talking about. When he comes here, he tastes before deciding. But in the end, he always chooses pistachio and black cherry, his favorite flavours,” Nicoletta Stampfl, the owner of Santa Gelato, is quoted by the magazine.
Santa Gelato incidentally regularly features in the top ice cream joints of Monte Carlo and has had no shortage of celebrity visitors. From Rafael Nadal to Medvedev and Dimitrov, though it’s Nadal who remains the owner’s favourite customer.
“When he played and trained here, the Spanish champion Rafael Nadal, the nicest of them all, always came for ice cream. He wanted to learn how to make ice cream: he asked my husband our secrets. He’s a wonderful person, truly nice. In terms of being nice, Sinner is on the right track, but there will never be another Nadal among the great tennis players again.”
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Back to Sinner, and the story lists out how he would often drop with his friend Laila Hasanovic.
“I really liked Laila. She’s kind, just like Jannik,” Nicoletta says. “She’s beautiful, very simple in her manner and dress. In short, she’s a very natural girl. They speak English to each other…” Nicoletta shared.
In the last couple of days, Laila has been featured in newspapers from Australia to US, linking her with Sinner. The recent gossip flood was triggered by an overhead camera shot after his last win in the tournament. He had flipped his phone and there was a very very grainy picture of a lady as wallpaper. But that’s fandom, with plenty of close zoom-ins done to identify the lady.
Ahead of his US Open title defence, Sinner admitted to being “in love”. He had refused to divulge more details: “I don’t want to talk about it.”
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The last word on the ice cream story of course, belongs to Nicoletta, who revealed what Sinner did do before leaving for the season on the American hard courts. He reportedly bought a “one-kilogram tub of ice cream” with Laila, and “they had been sitting outside the shop for quite some time”.
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