“I feel that I have improved” – Sinner reveals the work behind his improved mental toughness

Italy’s Jannik Sinner scored his seventh consecutive top 10 victory on Thursday at the ATP Finals, beating Holger Rune in three sets to advance to the semi-finals in Turin with a perfect 3-0 record in the round-robin stage.

Sinner has now won 16 of his last 17 matches on the tour and while it might seem that the 22-year-old has hit a purple patch in recent months, the Italian has been continuously working over the years on several aspects of his game, including the mental side.

On Thursday, after beating Rune, Sinner revealed that he has been working with the team at Formula Medicine and their boss Riccardo Ceccarelli, who is known for his work with Formula 1 drivers in a bid to gain a mental edge.

“I’m working a little bit with it’s called Formula Medicine. The boss is Riccardo Ceccarelli. He was here. He was in the box also tonight. He has been here also the match with Novak. It is a little bit different because you don’t talk one to one, but you do certain exercises on the computer and they calculate how much of your brain you used, and then they help you to make it as automatic as possible with using less time and less brain.”

“It’s a little bit different because you see the mental coaches that you talk one-to-one and you try to find a solution. This is a little bit different because you are working on these things and you have to understand what happened and why and everything. We are working with him already some years now. I feel that I have improved. Obviously stepping on the court, it is a little bit different still. But I think we are making a good process.”

“I think in the most important moments, he played his best game and he absolutely deserved to win” – Djokovic on Sinner

All that work was evident in his game this week as his peers complimented the Italian for playing well at the crucial moments.

“He was attacking a lot, serving really well, kept his composure in those crucial moments that were a few today. He kept it quite clean and didn’t get too affected by any situation that came his way,” Stefanos Tsitsipas said about Sinner after losing to the Italian on Sunday.

World No 1 Novak Djokovic, who lost to Sinner on Tuesday, echoed a similar sentiment. “I think the main difference is that in the important points, he was going for it, he was more courageous. You have to just congratulate him. He just played a fantastic match. That’s what I told him at the net. I think in the most important moments, he played his best game and he absolutely deserved to win.”

By virtue of finishing on the top of the Geen Froup, Sinner advances to face the second-placed player from the Red Group which will be determined on Friday; his semi-final opponent will be one of Daniil Medvedev, Carols Alcaraz or Alexander Zverev.

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