Around Wimbledon this past week, an unfamiliar site among the traditional strawberries and cream: giant carrots. Five of them. These are the “Carota Boys”, a troupe of travelling Italian fans in carrot costumes supporting the world No 8, Jannik Sinner. (Additional context: he once nibbled on a carrot at a change of ends, instead of the more traditional banana.)
That the wiry 21-year-old, who hails from a small town on the Italy‑Austria border, has such dedicated fans makes sense. Sinner has wowed crowds with his almost supernatural all-surface sliding, manic court coverage and blockbuster matches – in particular against his Next Gen rival, Carlos Alcaraz, at both Wimbledon and the US Open last year. I’d argue he’s played the best point of the year so far. Mostly Sinner is a low-key figure calm on the court, who lets his tennis do the talking, although earlier in the tournament he did make lifestyle sections when he graced Centre Court carrying a bespoke Gucci duffel bag; his collaboration with the fashion house more evidence of his rising star.
On a fair-weather Sunday on No 1 Court, he took on the Colombian and surprise fourth‑round contender Daniel Elahi Galán. Galán, at his highest ranking of 54, had won just two tour-level grass matches before the tournament. A clay specialist who grew up on the red dirt, his booming serve and general attacking style had seen him manage to progress. Sinner, meanwhile, has a game tailor-made for fast surfaces, and had dispatched two Argentinians and the tricky Frenchman Quentin Halys.
It proved, initially at least, to be an unexpected rollercoaster of a match, encompassing high quality, an interloping sparrow, farce, chaos, slips worthy of banana skins on troublesome turf – and falls as dramatic as Niagara. Sinner’s straight‑sets win was not as straightforward as the 7-6 (4), 6-4, 6-2 scoreline might appear.
Both blasted a healthy number of aces in the opening set – Sinner six and Galán seven, with the Colombian managing to repel Sinner’s fierce forehands, which whizzed by so fast they drew gasps from the crowd. In the fourth game was the first sniff of trouble for Galán, with the underdog hanging on, saving three break points; something the Italian did himself in the seventh game. At 5-5 Galán looked in trouble again at 30-40, but a combination of an excellent serve and Sinner hitting into the net enabled him to escape. Two Sinner aces brought a tie-break.
Then: chaos. Sinner, who had been unhappy with a couple of line‑calls, abandoned his usual tranquil demeanour – this is a guy so polite he picked up the coin after the toss at the match’s start – when the umpire, Marijana Veljovic, overruled a lack of call from the line judge to assert a Sinner forehand – which clearly seemed to clip the back of the baseline – out. Sinner challenged. It was in. He shot Veljovic a look. Galán took the next point. A sarcastic clap from the Italian in the direction of Veljovic. To her relief he took the tie‑break anyway, 7-4, after an overhead smash had secured a mini-break.
It was not the last contretemps he would have with Veljovic as multiple bad calls were continually made. The Italian’s hand gestures were flowing, at one point holding a racket up to apologise to the crowd and his opponent after a debate of several minutes.
Sinner’s frustration increased when Galán broke him in the first game of the second set – and in an epic, seemingly interminable second game played out with no fewer than seven deuces, Galán clung on to his serve. A player other than Sinner might have been in racket‑smashing territory. Four more break points came and went before Sinner finally ground Galán down to level at 4-4. And, back to usual Sinner style, his clutch play enabled him to hold comfortably, then break in the crucial 10th game to snatch the second set 6-4.
Calmer, Sinner was back to his best in the third set. He raced to a 3-0 lead, dipping into his bag of tricks liberally. Drop shots dinked so delicately, like a game of tiddlywinks. Returns that landed on Galan’s toes. He marched to a 5-2 lead, the shouts of “Forza!” coming less anxiously from his box. Galán battled admirably to save two match points on his own serve in the next game, and grabbed the first point as Sinner served out at 5-4. But, inevitably, he could not hold off the Italian, who took the first of double match points after a blistering serve was met with a Galán shank ballooning into the air.
Sinner will now play his second Wimbledon quarter-final in consecutive years, his opponent Roman Safiullin, a Russian who overcame Denis Shapovalov in four sets. Sinner faced Safiullin once before in the ATP Cup, winning 7-6, 6-3. That he also took two sets off Novak Djokovic in his previous quarter-final here and has beaten Alcaraz before, will no doubt boost his belief that he can fulfil his potential this fortnight. But first: a calming ice bath, perhaps?
