Sinner, "The Master" and the Sweet Power of Defeat

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"Il Maestro," starring Pier Francesco Favino, is coming out these days. The film is about tennis, and it's the 1980s. Favino , a former failed talent, finds himself coaching a talented thirteen-year-old. This leads to a story, a film I don't even know what it's like, having only read a few cursory reviews of. All we know is that the boy's father is an engineer who treats his son oppressively, aiming to make him a champion. The film touches on a timeless theme: a boy's growth in sport and the role of parents. With Sinner, we're faced with a case that's both similar and completely different. The South Tyrolean left his family at roughly the same age as the young talent depicted in the film, but in completely different ways. It seems that Jannik, leaving for Bordighera for Piatti, said goodbye to his father Hanspeter with a simple handshake and then, without looking back, set off towards the first real adventure of his young life.

From that moment on, our—and I emphasize our—champion's rise began, marked by solitude, distance, sacrifice, and dry phone calls home. How many are like him? None. No one is like Jannik. I point this out because I'm starting to see around, here and there (I know some clubs well), fathers and mothers (but especially fathers) who push their children beyond their natural physical and mental limits. Tennis in Italy is now on everyone's lips, it's even surpassing soccer. Sinner is even being overstated, breaking down his choices into little comic strips in which everyone sees the good, the bad, the powerful, the weak. He's Italian, he's not Italian. He evades taxes, he's in the pillory, no, who cares. He's handsome, he's not handsome. We've frozen his life like a painting hanging on the wall, the TV on which he performs. But fortunately, Jannik has spoken (comics speak), and he has acted in an unexpected way . He did it recently with a wonderful interview on Sky. He went beyond the formulaic "I played good tennis, we'll see tomorrow." He explained who he is, in simple words (we should all be like our words), and for the first time I saw a man.

And then I thought about the young protagonist of the film I've yet to see, but with whom I already fully identify. Who knows how they raised him! I too was a boy with a racket in my hand, just like Maestro Favino's student. I was full of dreams and fears. My father was a doctor, very absorbed in his work, and knew nothing about me, about my athletic weaknesses. I lost often, almost always, even though I played fairly well. I grew up with a culture of defeat. Today, since my father reads me (I know you do), I can only say that those defeats were sweet precisely because no one ever held them against me. Not my father, not my mother, and not even, over all these years, life itself.

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