Peak
Editor’s Note: This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering leadership, personal development and performance through the lens of sports. Follow Peak here.
At 13, Jannik Sinner left home to train with a famed Italian tennis coach named Riccardo Piatti. It was the first time he had focused solely on the sport, and although he harbored big dreams, he stayed realistic.
“If one day I would have been top 100,” Sinner recalled, “I would be the happiest.”
He understood the odds, and he knew how expensive the sport would be. So he told his parents that if he was not in the top 200 in the world by the time he was 23 or 24, he would stop playing.
