So we’ve reached a point where a player who’s won 14 Grand Slam titles (at least one on each surface), amassed over $70 million in prize money, and has a million other super-statistics that you only have to Google up his name to find, all before turning 30, is beginning to be written off as something of a has-been. But this isn’t about Rafael Nadal. This isn’t even about tennis. This is about our apparent inability to let people be… without crafting insta-narratives around them. So the man is in a slump. Maybe he’ll climb out of it. Maybe he won’t. But can we hold back the hand-wringing, please?
So this is a little about fandom, our unwillingness to tolerate even a bit of humanness in the gods we worship. We know in our heads that the apple that goes up will have to fall, et cetera. But we pray that, due to some black magic, it would remain afloat forever. Damn that Newton. We want our idols to be moonwalkers, and every reminder of the pull of gravity becomes a sin. We lose faith. It’s not just one player having a bad year. It’s the end of the world as we know it. It’s a reason for every sports columnist to type out an early obit note.
Picture courtesy: http://www.thestar.com/
This is also about – I think – our relationship with failure. We all fail. Sometimes we fail to become the people we want to be. The last season of Mad Men had a beautiful line about this: “Not every little girl gets to do what they want. The world cannot support that many ballerinas.” Other times, we fail with friends, with family. And so we latch on to our idols and keep expecting them to succeed all the time – it’s a vicarious form of achievement. We do through them what we cannot do ourselves. We win through them, we travel the world through them, we bask in the praise bestowed on them, as though we were somehow personally involved in shaping them, making them the successes they are today. And when the great flame begins to flicker, we are terrified of being cast off into the darkness all over again, alone with our failures.
I’m not above this. I’m not thrilled about what’s happening with Nadal. But there’s something else, the opportunity to support a struggle – a man battling not just his opponents but himself, his aching and groaning body, his mind. How terrible it must be to be the apple that must will itself back up again. It’s something out of Joseph Campbell. Suddenly there’s this wall, this big wall from heaven to earth, and the hero must find a way around it. You’ve got to be something of a romantic to appreciate this wall. Someone like Federer, who’s been kissed by every angel in the sky, will never know this wall. He may have known hurdles, certainly – but I’m talking walls. Had Federer been a Joseph Campbell hero, he’d have found winged shoes by the wall. He’s blessed that way.
But again, this isn’t about Federer. Or Nadal. This isn’t even about tennis. This is about suffering. It’s about seeing it all slip away. It’s about being king one day and then turning around and finding the crown is gone and you’re one of the commoners. It’s about upstarts on court not spending sleepless nights about facing you the next day. It’s about people not even being surprised anymore that you’re failing. It’s about reading about yourself in the past tense – he was a good player, he was one of the greats. It could happen to any one of us, but then we aren’t great enough for our failures to be documented, and neither are we honest enough to document them, and so we turn to our idols again, wringing hands and writing early obits, doing through them what we cannot do ourselves.
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2015 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Soundarya
September 8, 2015
Your post resonates my thoughts exactly! I read the autobiography of Monica Seles and she had mentioned that even before she had thought of quitting tennis, the world was talking about it and forcing her to think if she wanted to play tennis!
Love your posts!
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Madan
September 8, 2015
Nicely written. But are Nadal’s FANS really writing him off? Not too many of them, as far as I am aware and I know plenty of tennis fans online and ‘offline’. In fact, on an internet forum, the fans fantasised about what would happen when Nadal would beat Djokovic and deliver a rude jolt to the ‘haters’. Sadly he could not even get past Fognini and had he done so, would in all likelihood have lost to the serve-volleyer Lopez (yes, acche din are here for tennis, serve volley is in good health at The Open, better at least than in years). In fact, Nadal fans swing to the other end of the spectrum, of utter denial and complete faith in their idol whereas we Fed fans could smell his problem with Nadal from a mile and resigned ourselves to the fact that he would lose his big match encounters against him.
My views on this subject overall are a little different. Colour me cynical but idol worship has burgeoned into a multi million, if not billion, dollar industry and marketers literally handpick the people they want us to idolise (earlier there was at least some semblance of ‘random selection’). They tried to sell Bouchard to tennis fans last year and when she caved in spectacularly on Centre Court, they desperately searched for some place to hide from the mess. In such a situation, when the fall comes, the reaction will also be outsize. On the other hand, Mardy Fish is a true hero, having served America well in a time when they have been sliding in tennis and brave enough to open up about his battles with anxiety which roiled his career. When word arrived that Fish would play his last two tournaments at Cincy and US Open, people turned up to cheer him and did so with gusto, knowing full well he may not even get very deep in either tournament, let alone win. It was unconditional support, beautiful and poignant. Rare are such moments these days in tennis or any big, commercial sport for that matter. Where fandom is based on an emotional bond….and not just glory hunting. Sorry but that has to be said.
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Ram Murali
September 8, 2015
Nice article, BR. While I haven’t followed tennis in a long time, as a mad fanatic of cricket and also someone that reads quite a decent amount of non-fiction (related to management, personal development, leadership, etc.) I could appreciate the points that you made on failure and our attitudes towards it. Actually, I have been meaning to write on some of the lessons that I’ve learned from the world of cricket. One of the big grouses that I have of the Indian cricket system is that there is not a transparent, merit based (to the extent possible) system to let players recover from brief slumps. True, it’s a very, very competitive world out there but players need to be given not only a fair trial (when they get selected) but also a fair shot of getting back (when they get dropped). We either go to one extreme and persist with players that are well past their prime or drop players unceremoniously without any explanation or a fair enough system to provide them a route back into the team. There were some very sincere and dedicated players like Pravin Amre who had amassed tons and tons of runs in the domestic circuit (after being dropped from the Indian side) but could never return to the national side.
The other issue that we have when dealing with failures is failing to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Things have changed dramatically in the past 15 years with the likes of Ganguly and Dhoni as leaders but we had such a pessimistic attitude in the late 80s and 90s where we routinely conceded psychological advantage to opponents. My favorite example is our failure to “recover” from Miandad’s sixer off Chetan Sharma (in 1986) for a very, very long time and kept repeatedly losing to Pakistan in Sharjah. True, it was a tremendous, epochal moment for Miandad and Pakistan who up until then had never won an ODI tournament of note. But why did we have to be shit-scared every time we went back to Sharjah to face Pakistan? A great six, a great innings, a great match. Hand over the cup to the opposing team. That’s done and dusted. But why not pick up the gauntlet with renewed vigor? Why did we have to lose the battle in our minds even before we entered the ground? Given what a potent tool the mind is, the more we embrace failure and see what lessons we can learn from it, the faster we can recover and get ready for the next challenge. It’s a pity that India needed moments like Prasad’s dismissal of Sohail (in the ’96 World Cup) and Sachin’s six off Shoaib Akhtar (in the ’03 World Cup) to fully recover from the effects of that moment in ’86.
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sudhirsrinivasan
September 8, 2015
Wish this were longer. Such an interesting topic.
Federer, incidentally, seems like he’s undergoing a revival of sorts. The last few years haven’t exactly been great, and I suspect that the next big slump – resulting in retirement perhaps – could well not be too far away. And when that happens, I’ll consider myself privileged to have seen him play. If anything, the fall is a reminder of the transience of perfection. And a rebuke at those who take that for granted.
You’re an inspiration for how you’re motivated to put in clean, crisp language what many people are happy to just leave as muddled thoughts in the head.
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oracle86
September 8, 2015
Nice article, BR. Loved the descriptions of fandom in particular. But you are off the mark when you describe Federer like this –
“Someone like Federer, who’s been kissed by every angel in the sky, will never know this wall. He may have known hurdles, certainly – but I’m talking walls.”
In 2013, Federer had a season way below par due to recurrent back problems. It was a particularly stressful period for us Fed fans. Commentators and analysts were calling for his retirement, saying he was ruining his own legacy by choosing to play on when he was clearly not his best, his critics and hatahs were gloating at his repeated failures and early losses, and even his fans were shocked and unsure whether he would ever be back at his best.
But then he started doing what he does best – fixing himself back into shape. He reduced his upper body mass even further, lost about 5 kilos, experimented with a larger racket and started playing with it, hired his idol Stefan Edberg, started playing more attacking tennis and in particular more net play in order to shorten points and enable himself to stay on level terms with younger and fitter opponents.
So yeah its been an arduous journey since then, but it’s paid off in spades and even though he may not have won a Slam, he’s been damn close at Wimbledon and at the age of 34, he’s still ranked 2 in the world.
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gvsafamily
September 8, 2015
Love your philosophical musings (the frequency of which seems to be increasing of late? Hey, but no one’s complaining 🙂 )
My 2p –
I think there is no field like Sports where success and failure manifest in such tengible, black & white terms – with absoluetly no room for ambiguity. If one moment victory elevates you to the skies, a very next bad run can bring you down with a thud in full public glare, with no mercy even to break the fall. So perhaps battle-hardened sportpersons, especially greats like Nadal, are not as prone to these vagaries as we ordinary mortals are? Of course they’d have their own demons to battle and criticisms to counter, but maybe they are made of sturdier stuff than us mere spectators?
So my point is, singing paens or writing obits – it’s what people do. The greats probably are ensconced in a less chattery zone mentally, equally away from both…
(maybe I need to pick up a sportperson’s autobiography pronto to get a better understanding of the workings of their mind 🙂 )
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Anuja Chandramouli
September 8, 2015
BR! This is a really wonderful article. As a massive Rafa fan, every time he goes down like this, my heart breaks a little. But so what if that massive heart and tenacity that has stood him in such good stead in the past may no longer be enough to pull him out of the doldrums? He remains one of the most inspiring individuals in the history of sport and I’ll always remain a fan irrespective of whether he makes that spectacular comeback or not.
It is terrifying that there are so many out there who have no qualms about tearing into a fellow human, iconic or otherwise at the first sign of weakness. But then again, it is a law of nature – if the sharks get the faintest whiff of blood they are going to stir themselves into a killing frenzy!
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brangan
September 8, 2015
(1) Okay, so this isn’t really about Nadal.
(2) I’m a “Fed fan” too. (Yes, there are those of us who like the sport enough to be in a state of polyamory 😀 )
(3) But then, this isn’t even about tennis.
Okay, I’ve said my piece. Now you can say “death to the author” and carry on with your readings 😀
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Jithu S
September 8, 2015
why did you have to mention the 70 million and all BR ? the best play for the love of the game.. nadal made federer made nadal made djkovic made… and some fellow telling their time is over is going to pull them down? make them suffer? like they were playing for the back pats and adulation?
this criticizing talk is for the consumers debating, for they can do ‘only’ that.. the creators create, and its lonely out there for them. M Navratilova? she is still playing? at 60?! and if there is any suffering at all, its because its ‘life’ and it has to make way for the new. no?
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bart
September 8, 2015
Very pertinent. One thing is that this writing off people creates a pressure, that it triggers them to pull the curtains down earlier that it should be. The talks of retirement of cricketers these days start in early 30s if they either sit out due to injuries or due to loss of form (Flintoff, Watson, Dhoni, Sanga), unlike the late 30s which used to be the norm just a few years back. To me, the player should have the right to decide when he wants to call it quits, especially in an individual sport like Tennis. Survival of the fittest works very naturally in these sports. It is not that Nadal is blocking some other youngster’s path to glory which was what some of the yesteryear heroes used do in cricket. For those cases perhaps, these fast-cooked obits might help speed up the inevitable…
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Anuja Chandramouli
September 8, 2015
BR! We know the terrible truth – you are a Fed fan. UGH! But thanks to this inspiring article we are willing to tolerate this foible, this bit of humanness in you. The same goes for your professed polyamory and other libertine caprices limited to the sport of tennis or even if they happen to extend beyond. 🙂 🙂
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Gradwolf
September 9, 2015
Knew you were gonna be lynched for that angels line! Did you and Jai Arjun conspire over it? Anyway, have fun. 😀
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Gradwolf
September 9, 2015
@Anuja: Oh such irony. Someone revealing that he is a Federer fan hints at “humanness”!
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Akhilan
September 9, 2015
You guys might call me delusional, or living in some sort of La-La land, but I consider Federer to be a part of my family. Till today, I cry when he loses major matches, and jump with uncontrollable ecstasy when he wins. I still vividly remember the day when he lost the Wimbledon 2008 final to Nadal; I didn’t speak to anyone for 4 days…!! I feel like I have a deep personal connection with him that words can’t do justice to… ‘And so we latch on to your idols’, you say BR, and I have done so for the past 14 years… As you so rightly put it, his success feels like my success, his failures feel like my failures… More than tennis, I simply can’t imagine my life without watching Roger step out onto a tennis court… I’m not willing to let him go… I wan’t him to play for eternity, I want to have the pleasure of latching onto him forever. Who’s this lunatic you guys might think, but I’m well aware that day will come when I’ll have to let go, and then, I’ll indeed be ‘terrified of being cast off into the darkness all over again, alone with my failures’…
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Iswarya
September 9, 2015
Talking about red-pencilling elsewhere, my hands were itching from the moment I saw “Not every little girl gets to do what they want. The world cannot support that many ballerinas.” But it was a quote and couldn’t be helped. Didn’t stop me from shaking my fist at it, helplessly, though. 😀
Hmmm.. Is there a movie likely to be made, like ever, about anyone tormented by an obsession with language?
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Shankar
September 9, 2015
So, there are two angles to this… one the player’s or the subject in discussion and the other being the fan or commoner. As a player, especially when you are at the top of your sport, failure is not a thought and everything seems to be going your way. It’s when either age, injuries or other external events start intruding in the level of excellence, that doubts creep in. This is where the mind is most tested for a top player. Some can make changes and squeeze a bit more life while others just give up. I can’t say there is much wrong with either option… the player, as the example here, knows best.
As for the fan, I agree with everything that is being discussed in the article. We cannot accept the first signs of mortality in these stars also. Similarly, we do see their wins as our own because we cannot ever achieve that level. This is because we do tend to place everyone on a pedestal, more so in our country, when it comes to film stars, politicians and the likes. There is a dose of passion but it is also a sorta of inferiority complex or “raj” syndrome. I’m again saying this from the perspective of the years gone by… I do know attitudes are changing now. It’s like these people are living in a different planet (Well, with some of our film stars, it certainly does feel so! 🙂 ) . When it comes to our sports stars, they are super heroes. It is remarkable that Sachin remained so level headed, despite all our mighty expectations. I was watching “Payanam” on TV recently and was amused by the scene where the fan repeatedly asks Babloo, who is a major film star in the film, to get up and fight the hijackers! That’s the sort of expectations that we have from our idols. How can they not fail?
So, when they do fail, there are no level heads on our part… we just write them off. There is no sympathy, no reasoning, no giving a chance… and somehow that makes some of us feel better. I, for one, can never understand how!!
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T_G
September 9, 2015
Pop psychologist now? I thought the phenomenon of ‘being someone’s fan’ is well researched.
Secondly, how do you know Federer is blessed? Cos of what other journalists say so? Or cos of the way he moves around with apparent ease?
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Madan
September 9, 2015
It is not that Nadal is blocking some other youngster’s path to glory which was what some of the yesteryear heroes used do in cricket. For those cases perhaps, these fast-cooked obits might help speed up the inevitable…
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Tamil
September 9, 2015
Such a nice article that resonates with my thoughts. By making a person an ideal player/ leader/ whatever you make them to be, we are inherently taking away the freedom from that person and slaving them to our fantasized high achievements. I remember when I used to be a fanatic Federer supporter during my college days, my friend used to have a very philosophical and practical approach of cheering for no one and watching it for purely the delight of the game and appreciating the better player that day. Didn’t make much sense then, but I see the value in that these days.
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bart
September 9, 2015
@Madan: oracle86 did point to the version upgrade of the mighty King Fed. I even read a news yesterday about him inventing a new shot, “Sneak Attack”. More these greats are at play, they take the game forward. Nadal being the hard chiseler that he is, would certainly find a way through his difficulties with some wise counsel. Until then whether he ends up losing at 1st or 2nd round decides his ranking and his entry into the next tournament. So, writing these early obits shouldn’t kill a chance of seeing a newer version of Nadal. Did we not respect Llayton Hewitt until he decided to retire even if he didn’t come anywhere close to the peak that he touched once? Being silent and letting the man try is what I was pointing to.
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Prem D Palanivel
September 9, 2015
Tennis Lessons- Interesting…..very interesting..
#Tennis #Life, #Nadal #Federer #Kings #Suffering #Failure #Fandom #Newton #Gravity #Madmen #JosephCampell..
I could tag it in lot more ways! 🙂
..but wait .. you have missed out #InterGalactic & #ChristopherNolan 🙂 🙂
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Lav
September 9, 2015
ada ada ada!
Super post! Where is the “whistling” icon when you need it 🙂
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Guhanesan Kathiresan
September 9, 2015
Such a relevant and true article for today’s spectators including me. Like you said it’s not about tennis alone. We get carried away the same way for cricket too.. or for that matter for any failure we come across. Thanks for the well written article.
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udhaysankar
September 9, 2015
Yep, I can relate to this. Being an Hardcore Fed fan, seeing him lose in 2008 wimbledon finals was sort of an heartbreak for me. He was supposed to be the king of grass. No one could dethrone him from that. Atleast till the 2008 summer when nadal produced an scintillating level of play to defeat federer. Arcticles were written about his ability to carry on, about his vulnerable backhand, degrading fitness and also about nadal proving that Wimbledon isn’t the same as it was before (The courts have slowed down a lot..). But then “Fed Express” bulldozed through all that bush and kept producing glimpses of fascinating tennis, refusing to die. It hired new coaches, got bigger rackets and kept working and won more slams. But the headlines were like “Vintage Federer…!”, as if he wasn’t any different by then. They always wanted him to be the conqueror. Sadly that doesn’t happen with anyone, for he was human too.
The same is happening with Nadal, right now. Irrespective of whether he comes through it people should realize that there aren’t any human idols
in this world. Great Men keep falling and it isn’t the end of the world. They carry on with it. Some soar through it, some don’t. But that doesn’t rob them of their greatness, irrespective of how long it had lasted.
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TR
September 9, 2015
The urgency with which we look for heroes, build them up, and tear them down seems to be increasing at a frenetic pace. Social media constantly urges us to look here, look there, be on my side, be on your side, pronounce, denounce, like, despise… it’s pretty exhausting and draining. I miss the gentler days when the news arrived only in the mornings in basic black and white.
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dpacsaml
September 9, 2015
This article reminded me of the Coldplay song, Viva la Vida 🙂
I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own
I used to roll the dice
Feel the fear in my enemy’s eyes
Listen as the crowd would sing
“Now the old king is dead! Long live the king!”
One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand
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ThouShaltNot
September 9, 2015
Love watching Nadal play and have always rooted for him. The rooting, isn’t hard, but the watching has become harder. You don’t ever like to see an icon flailing. He isn’t now, but the fear is always there. Someone once called him (half jokingly) the perpetual motion machine, which after all isn’t a practical construct. The brand of physically demanding tennis he plays would have taken down a lesser mortal years ago. He is wobbly now, but is still standing. That speaks to his grit. I think it was US sportscaster Mary Carillo, who oft referred to him as the “problem solver”, because he always figured out a way. This time might be his biggest test.
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Irfan Syed
September 9, 2015
Love the way you’ve strung together the thoughts in the piece…
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Shalini
September 9, 2015
Perhaps, I’m being particularly dense today, but I can’t identify with the sentiments expressed in this post. At all. I can’t decide whether you’re simply noting an aspect of human behavior or despairing over said behavior? Perhaps the reason I’m having difficulty relating is because I don’t have the temperament to be a fan. Unstinting loyalty to one’s idol of choice seems to be the primary requirement for a fan but I have a very utilitarian attitude towards ‘heroes’ – as long as their ‘performance’ pleases me I’ll watch, when it no longer does I’ll stop watching.
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tonks
September 9, 2015
Typo first line : gland slam
Lovely writing.
This isn’t even about tennis. This is about suffering. It’s about seeing it all slip away. It’s about being king one day and then turning around and finding the crown is gone and you’re one of the commoners.
Reminded me of :
1) an Abba song
2) some people who retire from a powerful job and suddenly find that they are nobodies.
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Madan
September 9, 2015
@bart: You can’t really compare Fed’s situation with Nadal’s. Fed is aging like fine wine, as Agassi did in the early noughties. Nadal’s has been a dramatic decline, like Sampras’s at the end of a massive winning streak. Also, Fed is known as a great strokemaker and keeps learning new shots all the time. Nadal’s repertoire has hardly expanded in years. I would not rule out anything in THEORY, but based on past trends in tennis and what I know about it from watching and playing it, I think it’s going to be very difficult now for Nadal. Also not comparable to Hewitt, who was no.1 in the most barren field of the ATP and last won a slam in 2002. Did anybody really discuss the decline of Rafter after Wimbledon 2001? He was a great player, may have won more slams had he played in the Hewitt era. Obviously, somebody of Nadal’s stature suffering these losses attracts a lot of attention. I don’t think Nadal being tough as nails would retire just because commentators or journalists suggested he should. But he has already suffered his first slam less year since 2005 and should he fail at RG as well next year, an announcement may be on the cards.
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Madan
September 9, 2015
I think it was US sportscaster Mary Carillo, who oft referred to him as the “problem solver”, because he always figured out a way. This time might be his biggest test.
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Hithesh Devasya
September 10, 2015
It’s the same thing with the arts and explains why stars rarely go out of their comfort zone. You have 3 consecutive flops to your name and they start writing obits, fan letter editorials and listicles headlined “10 times X stole our heart”. Considering 3 hits brings you demi god status and paal abhishekams, it is no wonder we’ve been having the same kind of films year in and year out.
@Madan – “Fed is known as a great strokemaker and keeps learning new shots all the time. Nadal’s repertoire has hardly expanded in years.”
McEnroe has been calling out Nadal’s reluctance to try out a new coach who might bring in a fresh perspective. Well, who knows how it will help him. It’s rightly said here that he is facing his biggest problem to date.
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Sifting
September 10, 2015
It is nice to see this article here. You said what many have said before and will keep on saying. Expecting a little humanness in the Gods we worship? Absolutely not 🙂 🙂
It could happen to any one of us, but then we aren’t great enough for our failures to be documented, and neither are we honest enough to document them, and so we turn to our idols again, wringing hands and writing early obits, doing through them what we cannot do ourselves.
This! Most of us secretly think we have the capability, but were/are let down by the myriad circumstances that worked/working against us. We ourselves are not fallible. At all. Unless we could use that as an easy excuse for something we loathe to do. That is why the object of our current obsession has to emerge as a winner always. And if they fail, we lynch them, kill them, dissect them, and bury their little pieces deep in hatred. Or turn our ire against the so called dethroner of our demigod/goddess.
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Madan
September 10, 2015
@ Hitesh Yup, basically he should try something new because what worked before won’t anymore. And that is why it is the biggest problem he will solve, because Nadal is a creature of habit. He is finding it difficult to shift from AeroPro Drive to Pure Aero even though the specs are near identical whereas Fed has moved to a significantly larger head size to help his backhand. It will be interesting to see how he goes about it; the odds though are stacked against him.
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Gyaani
September 11, 2015
I think its also about selective fandom. For example, I am a Federer fan, have been before he started winning regularly (just like I have supported Liverpool, though I grew up in Man UTD glory days) and while every Fedex victory is hugely cheered now, Nadal’s is not except for probably his own fan boys. In fact, and I say this from experience, I would love to see Nadal fail more. I have nothing against the man, even respect him for getting so far with far less talent than most (say the Joker or the Fed), but I mostly remember him as the one frontier, the Fed was not able to master. Its like, being a Rajini fan, I view Kamal’s performances with a severely critical eye. This means, that other than our own heroes (from whom we have little or no expectation), our expectations from his peers or foes goes up manyfold. This is not obviously something to be proud of, but just reality.
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Madan
September 11, 2015
gyaani: I don’t wanna bring out the unpleasant stuff but part of what you described is also down to Nadal’s public exhortations for more clay tournaments, repeated time violations while serving, dissing Sampras and Ivanisevic as boring (the irony!), asking for a two year ranking cycle, etc. There is a certain sneakiness about him which doesn’t sit well with a player of his stature and achievements. He even claimed to have never noticed that Wimbledon had slowed down!!!! Djokovic on the other hand said Wimbledon used to the fastest court in the world when he began playing in the pro tour and had slowed down, even being gracious enough to admit that the slower conditions helped him but at the cost of killing variety. Fed is the same. One senses that Fed or Djoko just love playing tennis whereas Nadal cares foremost about winning and is prepared to lie through his teeth to protect his legacy. Remember Toni getting worried about Aussie Open playing a bit faster and ‘spoiling the spectacle of long rallies for the audience’? Bwahaha. Not in itself a bad quality in a sportsman but tennis being a more elite sport, that kind of attitude stands out in a not so good way. When Djokovic beat Fed at this year’s Wimb final, I clapped and cheered. I would have preferred a Fed win but I don’t mind a Djoko victory at all. I can’t say I ever felt that way about Nadal as much as I do respect his achievements. Or rather I did before I became more aware of this sneaky aspect.
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bod
September 12, 2015
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2015/09/roger_federer_think_piece_how_to_write_one_for_the_2015_u_s_open_or_any.html
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SRN
September 12, 2015
Thanks for a very insightful and thought provoking post.
The situation described is a reality check and a lesson to us “mere mortals” when we see the greats who have achieved so much, struggle when they still have a whole life ahead of them.
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newbie
September 13, 2015
“But there’s something else, the opportunity to support a struggle – a man battling not just his opponents but himself, his aching and groaning body, his mind.”
This is the story of almost every self-respecting Sports movie no? I often find there is something about a good sports story/movie that makes us involve on an elemental level.
” This is about suffering. It’s about seeing it all slip away. It’s about being king one day and then turning around and finding the crown is gone and you’re one of the commoners.”
This is so true of anything one loses with age too like beauty and power (especially after retirement. Wonder if this is what makes some people (especially notable sportsmen like Schumacher, Phelps, Mayweather) come out of retirement (not very gracefully sometimes)…
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brangan
June 10, 2019
Enjoyed reading these comments after the French Open final. Forget his tennis, Nadal is one of the great “mind over matter” inspirations.
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Madan
June 10, 2019
The Big Three keep humbling us all with their insatiable thirst for achievements. Except new racquet, Nadal did everything else we the armchair pundits said he should. And instead of new racquet, he simply added weight to the old one. At one point yesterday, he had four backhand winners to Thiem’s none. Says it all. In fact, Nadal’s backhand improvement is somewhat overlooked with all the talk about Fed’s neo backhand. On clay, it’s been lethal.
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