In a historic final, the Italian turned around a match that seemed to be going Medvedev's way in straight sets to win the Australian Open title at the age of 22, a 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3. 

He won his first Grand Slam, eating one of the three greatest players in the history of the sport in Djokovic in the semi-final, Djokovic, and perhaps marked the beginning of a new era in tennis. He became the second-youngest player to win the title after "Nole", who did so at the age of 20 years and 250 days. 

For the first time in 19 years, none of the protagonists of the Big Three - Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and current world number one Novak Djokovic - played the final on Melbourne Park's Central Court. An entire generation or more of tennis has been led by what many consider to be the three greatest players in the history of the sport. 

The last time none of them competed for the Australian trophy was in the 2005 final, which ended with Russia's Marat Safin beating local Lleyton Hewitt.

Jannik is the first Italian male tennis player to win in Melbourne and the third to do so at a Grand Slam after Nicola Pietrangelli at Roland-Garros (1959-1960) and Adriano Panatta (1976). On the women's side, Francesca Schiavone reigned at Roland Garros in 2010 and Flavia Penetta won the US Open in 2015 after a historic Italian final against Roberta Vinci.

Sinner is the first individual male champion in Melbourne not to be named Djokovic or Nadal since 2018 and outside of the Big Three since 2014.The new era has clearly arrived. What's strange is that the new sensation in the world of tennis is a player who didn't play tennis until he was a teenager, or at least played it as a hobby, as his main sport was skiing.

Although his father had given him a racket at the age of 3, it was only as a hobby and not as his main sport. In fact, he excelled at skiing. Between the ages of 8 and 12, he became one of Italy's most promising skiers, which is only logical for someone who was born just a few kilometres from the Austrian border, more precisely in the small town of San Candido (population just over 3,000), in the province of Bolzano, in the Italian Tyrol.

The son of Italians of German origin who worked at a ski resort in the area, Jannik was influenced by his father to take up tennis. At the age of 13, he moved to Bordighera, on the famous Italian Riviera, to train at the Piatti Tennis Centre. That's where it all began. 

The tennis academy of the renowned Italian coach Ricardo Piatti was the turning point, his breakthrough, the beginning of his new life linked to tennis, but now with the aim of being competitive and, why not, dreaming of being like the professional players who had gone through that academy on the Ligurian coast. 

None other than Novak Djokovic, whom he defeated in the semi-finals in Australia, trained at this tennis academy and was a reference for every practitioner on the Mediterranean coast. 

"The most important thing is that in tennis is to see your opponent. You know if you're ahead or behind on the scoreboard or behind, if you need to change something or not," he explained. "In skiing, you go down alone and you don't know if you're the fastest or the slowest, you just see red and blue gates."

Sinner's unconventional journey saw him skip a Grand Slam junior tournament, the traditional precursor to professional tennis. However, he has enjoyed a meteoric rise in the ATP rankings. 

Despite turning professional at the age of 16, in 2019, he played his first almost full season on the ATP circuit and climbed more than 450 places in the world rankings to reach the top 80 (78th), making him the youngest player to be that high at the end of the year since Nadal in 2003 (17 years, 47th). Another milestone in his career was winning the NextGen ATP Finals at the age of 18, which brings together the world's best players under the age of 21. 

He reached the quarter-finals of his fourth Grand Slam in the autumn of 2020 and finished in the top 10 in 2021. From his first Grand Slam semi-final at Wimbledon in 2023, to his first Masters 1000 title (Toronto), a Masters final and fourth place in the world rankings, his progress has been unstoppable.

At the end of last year, he became world champion for his country. Italy won the Davis Cup for only the second time in 47 years, and Sinner had a lot to do with that historic week in Malaga, Spain, to secure the title. 

Sinner's rise and now consolidation heralds a new era in a circuit dominated by the "Big Three," most recently in recent times by Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, and before that by Roger Federer, who retired from official competition. 

Every promising appearance has been overshadowed by these three legends of world tennis. Dominik Thiem, the Russians Daniil Medvedev and Andrei Rublev and the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas were never able to overshadow the dominance of the veteran "Big Three". 

With the Swiss retired, the Spaniard unable to make his mark on the circuit due to months of injury and the Serb dominating the circuit but no longer absolutely, new doors have opened for the new figures of world tennis.

After beating "Nole" in the semi-finals, to turn the match around (with only one set down and not two as in the final), shows another mental strength of the Italian. 

The new wave is led by Sinner and Spain's Carlos Alcaraz (world No. 2) as the new figures of world tennis. One of the newcomers, but not yet fully established, is Holger Rune from Denmark.   

Having beaten a Top 5, 3, and 1 in the same week (Rublev, Medvedev, and Djokovic) for the first time will give him even more mental strength and confidence to face 2024 as the frontrunner to lead the post-Big Three era.