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Italy has long valued some of life’s more refined pleasures – food, art, fashion, all set against the country’s crumbling architecture. Now, that cultural smorgasbord includes a new and perhaps surprising offering: tennis.

Surprising, at least, for those only just noticing the recent glut of tennis talent to emerge from the southern European nation. In the men’s game, Italy has nine players ranked inside the top 100 and five in the top 50, including the all-conquering Jannik Sinner – a four-time grand slam champion and the world No. 1 since June last year.

Given the country’s modest history in the sport, this is truly a golden age for Italian tennis, one which has vaulted to even greater heights thanks to Sinner’s success on the court and popularity off it.

Sinner lunges for a ball at the Cincinnati Open on August 16. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

“We are now particularly spoiled,” Ubaldo Scanagatta, a veteran journalist from Italy and founder of the Ubitennis website, tells CNN Sports about his country’s tennis boom. “Sinner is the top athlete, the top sportsman in Italy … He’s already an idol.”

Scanagatta has been involved in tennis for decades. He has covered nearly 180 grand slams, including 51 Wimbledons and 50 French Opens, but never has he seen the sport as popular as it is now.

Soccer has traditionally dominated the sporting landscape in Italy, and that seems unlikely to change anytime soon. But failure to qualify for the last World Cup, coupled with a lack global superstars – “we don’t have (Lionel) Messi, (Cristiano) Ronaldo, (Kylian) Mbappé, or some of the players who play in the Premier League,” says Scanagatta – has created greater room for tennis to f