Sinner and Meloni posed for photos as they held aloft together first the Australian Open trophy and then the Italian flag.
Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner returned to Italy on Tuesday amid great fanfare and headed straight to a private meeting with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. “Grandissimo,” Meloni said when Sinner walked into her office in the Chigi Palace.
“I want to show you something,” Meloni then said, before turning on a replay of match point from Sinner’s five-set victory over Daniil Medvedev in Sunday’s final, during which the Italian rallied from two sets down. It’s nice to experience it after the fact,” Sinner said.
Sinner and Meloni posed for photos as they held aloft together first the Australian Open trophy and then the Italian flag. Sinner then gave Meloni a warm embrace to end the meeting.
“The Italy we like: capable of believing in itself and reacting to difficult challenges. And to win,” Meloni said later on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter. “Thank you, Jannik, for the example you gave us, to sports lovers, to our young people and to all of Italy.”
Sports Minister Andrea Abodi accompanied Sinner to the premier’s office. “It was an informal meeting,” Abodi told reporters. “They talked as if they were friends.” Abodi added that Meloni “knows tennis” and that they “joked about padel and maybe seeing each other again during the Italian Open.(HT)