Sinner announced the news with an Instagram photo. Posing alongside Badio and Panichi in a selfie, he wrote: “Welcome to the team Marco and Ulises”. It comes just four months after Panichi parted ways with Djokovic.
The Serb also took to social media to announce their split back in May. “Grande Marco, what amazing years of collaboration we’ve had. We reached the summit, won titles, broken records. But most of all, I have enjoyed our most “ordinary” days of training in and out of the gym,” he said.
Meanwhile, Badio left the Djokovic camp at the end of 2022 after more than five years together. The physiotherapist’s departure came as a shock. Just months earlier, Badio had told Diario Sur: “Novak and I created a close bond and started to get to know each other, creating this important link.”
Sinner had been without a fitness trainer and physio since axing both of his old team members in the wake of his doping saga. The Italian twice tested positive for the banned substance clostebol in March. He received provisional suspensions but immediately and successfully appealed them.
Three experts found his contamination explanation plausible and he was able to keep playing. After an independent tribunal hearing was staged in August, the International Integrity Agency announced that Sinner “bore no fault or negligence” for the positive tests.
Sinner and his team successfully argued that he was contaminated through his physio. The world No. 1’s fitness trainer Umberto Ferrara bought over-the-counter spray Trofodermi in Italy. His physiotherapist Giacomo Naldi then cut his finger on a scalpel during Indian Wells and used Ferrera’s Trofodermi spray each morning for just over a week.
He continued to massage Sinner without wearing gloves. The 23-year-old often has small cuts and sores on his back and feet. In documents from the hearing, Sinner is said to have asked his physio whether he was using anything to heal the cut and was told “no”.
Neither Ferrera nor Naldi had been seen in Sinner’s box throughout the summer. After news of his positive tests and the “no fault or negligence” ruling broke after the Cincinnati Open, Sinner’s coach Darren Cahill confirmed the Italian had only been travelling with himself and Simone Vagnozzi – the world No. 1’s other tennis coach.
Sinner then officially split with both men. He went on to lift his second Grand Slam title at the US Open with Cahill and Vagnozzi by his side. And he’s now back to work in Monte Carlo with Panichi and Badio now in the team.
