Numbers, screaming

You know how I effectively said, after Roger Federer won the French Open, that the stats and records he's notching up are essentially just symbols — earthly representations of something that cannot be adequately rendered as such?

Yeah, well, fuck that. Symbols matter. A fifteenth major, at Wimbledon, in front of Sampras, Borg and Laver, against an immense opponent in Andy Roddick, in a match which featured a thirty-game deciding set...How's that for a symbol?

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Our song

As I convalesce after having my brain surgically repaired following repeated sweet assaults over a seven-hour period on Sunday (this is looking like becoming a series: Over-Emotional Reactions To Major Sporting Events), perhaps it's time for some sober reflection on Sunday's events - though there may still be traces sloshing around my bloodstream (way to kinda mix metaphors, F.!).

Maybe the old-timers are right and things ain't what they used to be. I'm not about to make any grand proclamations about where the Nadal-Federer rivalry fits in among the greats of yore (besides, I already somewhat slyly did so on Sunday night). It's all too easy believe you're in love with the last pretty thing you saw, as we know from painful experience.

But I for one am not all that bothered about the issue. It's not that I don't have a sense of history - I quite like to think the contrary is true - but I wasn't around when Borg and McEnroe, or Nicklaus and Watson, or Ali and Frazier were duking it out. One can read all the books and watch all the sentimental retrospective documentaries, but to run with a theme expressed several posts ago, the vital charge that gave these contests their essence faded with their passing. Sure, as long as those who witnessed them are around, their presence will linger, and their remains won't fossilise. But practically, they're gone.

Nadal-Federer, on the other hand, is alive - living, breathing, rampaging (flexing, grunting, adjusting the precise position of the bottles in front of the chair, sprinting to the baseline, bouncing the ball...bouncing...bouncing...bouncing..., etc.). We were there at its birth and we're proudly watching it grow into the leader of the pride.

To re-iterate: this is not a cover version of 'history is bunk'. The past is not something to be dismissed, nor to patronisingly pat on the head and say "I love hearing your war stories, Grandad, now here's your mashed bananas with your sleeping pills mixed in, there's a good soldier". But you have to step away from it and see the present in its own light. It's perhaps easier said by a relative novice such as myself than done ; no doubt as I get older I'll accumulate such memories as to be unable to resist pitting them against one another for my affections. As it is, I'm enjoying this here and now, on its own terms, for what it is rather than what it isn't.

At the risk of contradicting myself, on some level it is about its relation to times past. The oldies had their great occasions to savour, and they've told us about them often enough since that we at once feel due awe at their enormity and an anxiety that maybe these things really do belong in memories and other more mechanical data retrieval systems. Now that something comes along that our minds and hearts tell us bear some correlation to these tales, we instinctively put it in the same volume and decorate it with the most florid language we can find. But this is ours, something that has taken root in our hearts and is blossoming as we live and breathe. This is the verse we'll come back to and linger over. This is the song that was playing when we our eyes first met, and luckily it wasn't Coldplay or Maroon 5 or some such.

It needn't be oppositional, of course. Those who've been around the block more often can still revel in it. Indeed, their experience will probably allow them to take it in more fulfillingly should they wish it to be so. In the case of Nadal-Federer a consensus seems to be forming that this is indeed the acme of tennis history.

The caveat in this is that we're all still a bit dazed after Sunday and even the wise are not necessarily exempt. We need to see how it plays out over the next few years and then let it ferment for a while before we call it. It certainly feels like we're seeing something seismic: Federer appears to be on the wane, and he is certainly faced with a novel (for him) predicament, whereas Nadal improves and has proved that he can pass muster on unfamiliar territory. But Nadal might remain allergic to the plains of Flushing Meadows and Melbourne Park, or his knees might give way; Federer could show that he really is the greatest champion of them all by staring the monster down. All I know is that it's happening now, and we're watching.


Some points I'm still too woozy to develop properly:

• Tiger Woods is extraordinary, and watching him in full flow is a privilege, but I wish there was another human being who could properly and consistently challenge him. It must be a bit embarrassing for the other golfers that Tiger's toughest opponent is his own cruciate ligament.
  



• Margaret Court apparently hated every opponent she faced. Mike Tyson wanted to eat his adversaries' babies (or was that Drederick Tatum? I literally can't remember which). The latest issue of World Soccer contains a feature on the greatest derbies in football, reminding us how much football is driven by bitterness, whether stemming from sporting-political slights or profound social faults. By all accounts, Rafa and Roger get on very well. Their rivalry is based on their encounters on the court and a deep mutual respect. Lest I come across as some kind of hippy or 19th century French aristocrat, I'm not saying that football should shed its feuds; they are intrinsic to the game, for good and bad. It's just nice to know, especially when the meeja are ever keen to play up any perceived animosity in certain sports, that such greatness is capable of emanating purely out of sporting deeds rather than fighting talk.
  



• On a similar tack, all those 'there are no personalities in sport anymore'-types can go hang. Nadal and Federer may be uncontroversial, respectful of their opponents and no doubt tend to sickly stray animals they find on the road. They may not swear at umpires or smash their racquets over line judges' heads. But seriously, watch that match again and tell me that all that matters. Sure, it would be a shame if all athletes really were match-winning automatons (which they of course are not, despite what some say). But take John McEnroe, someone I admire greatly: did it not get a bit boring the 932nd time he threw a hissy-fit? 'Personality' is not the be-all and end-all. Again, watch that match.
  

God, this blogging lark is easy. As long as a sporting event of major significance comes along, say, every week or so, I'm sorted...

Photo by andrew.wheeler

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Notes on Everything

I'm going to try to refrain from using the 'B' word in this post, but I fear it will be like eating a doughnut without licking my lips...I wish I'd paid more attention in religion class because I bet there are some killer metaphors I could steal...Federer probably feels like shit right now, but if ever there was honour in defeat, this is it...Federer looked like a little boy lost at Roland Garros a month ago, and frankly it was a frightening, in a small way, like an old certainty beginning to crack. One could say it humanised him, but that would be patronising - just because we're incapable of such greatness doesn't mean we can put it down to some kind of otherness. Nonetheless, it was kind of endearing. Perhaps there was a possibility of him going the same way at two sets down here. Thank God he didn't...Did you know, children, there was a time when a spell of 39 consecutive games without a break of serve (not including tie-breaks) signified nothing more than the tiring, eye-aching dutifulness of the habitual sports fan, rather than a proxy journey into the inner wonders and eternal weirdness of the human soul?...In an alternative universe, this match is still going on; what's more, we're all still watching it...I thought for a moment that God must hate tennis, but he's really just a hell of a dramatist. That rain was a classy touch, no?...I hope there's a disclaimer on those tickets, otherwise the All-England club are in for a torrent of ECG bills...When you think about it, aren't humans amazing? I don't know if one can say we've invented these rituals or had them thrust upon us by our own innate beings, but either way it's inconceivable that they shouldn't exist. Perhaps there's a bunch of aliens out there, existing in a state of transcendence far beyond our imaginations, and they're laughing at us and our silly little stickball games. But you know what, Zlorbazoids? Screw you. It's ours, and we like it, and I feel sorry for you that you'll never get to know the feeling of watching a cross-court backhand winner on a television screen and involuntarily gasping as a result...It's sometimes a bit of a shock to see the global viewing figures for the biggest sporting events and to realise that only 0.001% of the earth's population was watching, and that the world is still turning...Was I the only one who felt a twinge of inadequacy while watching this?...Most of the match was predictable; you knew, or at least had a strong hunch, that as soon as it looked like one man had found the poison, the other would immediately find an antidote. 'Predictable' is often used as a euphemism for boring, apparently...Good guys wear white. Angels wear white. Tennis players following the strict attire regulations of the All-England Lawn Tennis & Crocquet Club wear white...The alternate attempts of each player to manipulate the space of the court in baseline tennis is a thing of wonder when executed by these two, and particularly so when carried out with such controlled power. Simon Barnes likens tennis to a duel. I'm proud to live in an age where we have a bloodless substitute for sword-fighting. Fencing doesn't count, from my voyeuristic armchair view. Tennis is what fencing looks like in super slo-mo...Nadal's passing shot at 7-7 in the fourth set tie-break!...Federer's backhand winner at 7-8 in the fourth set tie-break!...Federer's roar when he won the fourth set tie-break!...It's said that in the future, scientists will be able to work out how this match got better and better and better the longer it went on...Not to generalise, but I kind of turned against the crowd when they laughed at the French umpire's tripping up over the word 'challenges'...Rafael Nadal prised the sword from the stone today...Sport as substitute for nuclear Armageddon: Federer and Nadal fire every weapon in their stockpile at each other so we don't have to...Or should that be Nadal and Federer?...This is fucking ridiculous...I wasn't born when the Thriller in Manilla happened...Rafa's OCD rituals are quite sweet, aren't they?...Tit-for-tat replay challenges...Sitting on my sofa, hundreds of miles away, even I was intimidated by Roger Federer's serve...I have a pain in my neck from shaking my head so much...Are footballers just a big bunch of wusses? If they cry at losing a penalty shoot-out, how would they cope in a tie-break, or with being 7-7 in the final set of a Grand Slam final?...I haven't eaten in, like, twelve hours...It is a skill to be able to withstand the crashing waves of silence in the seconds just before a serve in a Wimbledon final...Usually in any sports tournament, you would like to see some upsets along the way. This time, even forgetting about the benefit of hindsight, who in their right minds would have wished for that?...What's a Euro 2008?...Oh, sod it - 'Beauty', and all derivatives thereof...Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, thank you. Just, thank you.

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At last, a post about a sport that isn't football!

Roger Federer wins his Wimbledon semi-final.

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