After the finest season of his career, Jannik Sinner has surged to an almost divine status enjoyed by only a handful of transcendent Italian sporting champions:
Skier Alberto Tomba, motorcyclist Valentino Rossi and footballer Roberto Baggio.
Sinner is aged just 23. But as the only player from the nation to ever be ranked as the world's best tennis player, he has already joined the pantheon.
The frenzied focus on the boy from San Candido as he arrived at the ATP Finals in Turin - camera-flashing photographers and screaming autograph-hunters being kept at arm's length by burly security men - demonstrated he is a man in demand.