It started off with rain, as it often does. My first ordeal of the day was AIMCAT, a test for MBA aspirants. The last two tests had been a respite from the nerve crackers, not this one. I was reminded of the depth of the troubled waters I am in. Rain did help to further the cause and dampen my spirits. As you'll later see, there is something about rain that puts things in random motion- be it the vehicular traffic on roads or the thought traffic in minds of people. It does not matter to many though- especially the busy and the practical. I have always wondered the meaning of the latter however, what it really means to be practical in life. Well, let’s just be practical about it. I mean, practical people don't carry emotional garbage in their minds and don't let any traffic jams happen in there. Sorry for the diversion. So, after being mauled and trounced in the test, I headed to a restaurant with a friend, as if to celebrate my 50(that’s quite nearly the score I’d got off 300 balls so to speak, Balls to Me!) The food was oily and bitter, thanks to a garnish of chicken bile in Murgh Masallam,or I would never have tasted venom and survived.
Anyways, so far so bad. Once back home I thought to reboot my mood by watching sports. It was an important day for sport lovers for two reasons :1.the Asia Cup final between India n Sri Lanka and 2. the Wimbledon final between Roger n Rafael, both were lined up for primetime. The Asia Cup final started earlier. I dint care to watch the 1st innings as I find cricket rather boring these days. So I worked my time out with the remote to find Star Sports where Wimbledon was being telecast. Not many people are avid tennis fans in this part of the world. Cricket is their religion- as was mine before I quit murti-puja of the men in blue. So I'd to manually tune the channel until I could strike an optimum balance between the grains and the noise.
The Match
The Wimbledon final was supposed to have started by six thirty had it not been for rain-delay. By now, Sri Lanka had started slogging in the penultimate overs of the cricket match(as if I cared!). I was dying for the spectacle in the All England Club to commence. After a few hiccups, the match finally started near seven or seven thirty. I don’t remember exactly when as my eyes were continually glued to the telly and it was quite a task to lift them up just to watch the living room wall clock.
The atmosphere in the centre court was ecstatic, with grey clouds hovering around still, wind blowing like a serpent, changing its directions- all symbolic of bigger things to follow. The grass looked a bit slippery, ringing warning bells to the fast movers on the court. The setting for the finale was absolutely perfect- a 15000 strong star studded yet emotive audience who’d paid as much as 5000 pounds for a pair of tickets, the media people with hundreds of cameras and flashlights, neatly dressed ball-pickers, expressionless referees with walkie talkies, experienced commentators dissecting player profiles, the who's who of the tennis fraternity, other celebs, friends and families of the two champions- all surrounding a lush green Wimbledon centre court, which in tennis lingo, is said to be the best place to win and also the best place to lose for anybody. Not anybody reaches the ground zero of tennis though, where careers are made and destroyed. But I am not talking about just anybody here. I'm talking about the two finalists, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal who the crowd welcomed with a reverberating roar of cheers and applauses. Commentators grew hysterical from that point on with Viay Amritraj of the "ABC of tennis" fame even going on to analyse Federer’s coming out to the court ahead of Nadal !!
Until recently, Switzerland was known for its chocolates n watches, Spain for bull fighting n football. But it was all set to change soon as after Sunday, the two countries would be known more for their tigers, the powers that govern not just tennis but millions of minds that watch the game with bated breath, every time the titans clash.
Federer-Nadal contests have always proved to be ferocity v/s gravitas, style v/s substance and magic v/s logic, all rolled into a single package. This was no different but for the fact that both the players displayed all the above qualities at different points in the match, overcoming their self-imposed limits and venturing into uncharted territories never seen before.
One must mention that there's quite an interesting comparison between the two players. They're similar, yet they are different. Both measure 6 ft 1 in height yet one is muscular and the other is frail. Both don’t emote while playing, yet after winning a match, one simply throws his wristband to the crowd as the other throws himself over. Both are the best in their own right, yet one's the no.1 and other no.2. Both have stronger forehands yet one's left handed and the other is right handed. Both are chasing Borg's record, but of different kinds. Both have their heads held high in the clouds, but feet firmly footed- on grass for one, on clay for the other!! Both tend to get better with every passing game, yet one likes to stay put and deliver the winners while the other likes to run all around the park, wallowing in dust n sweat. One is elegant while the other powerful. One tricks while the other toils. And varyingly, one proposes while the other disposes. Die hard fans of the Spaniard are free to think of it as an analogy between man and God!!
On to the match, the 1st set was a repeat of Rolland Garros with Nadal having Federer completely out of sorts. The second set was no different and it seemed a humiliating straight sets loss for Federer was imminent. Lost he did, the 1st two sets 6-4 6-4 as Nadal continued to dig deep into Federer's weakening backhand. Never before in his entire career had the Swiss got 12 break points and converted only one. Both had a phenomenal winning streak before coming to this match. Federer had a 5 and a half year streak of 65 matches on grass. Moreover he was yet to lose a set this year and had lost just 3 sets in the last 3 years in Wimbledon-all to Nadal(unconfirmed data). Nadal too had an overall winning streak of 23 matches, winning most of them on clay.
Drama finally unfolded like a George Lucas flick, interspersed by.. rains(I told you). For some reason, every time rain delayed the match I would switch the tv off and whenever I turned it back on, the audio video lag would scare me, sending my thought traffic berserk, making me wonder whether the roar was for a Federer point or a Nadal one. Part One of the blockbuster was when Vampire Nadal sucked the blood out of a beleaguered Federer's neck, leaving him tottering at two sets down. It was however, Part Two, after the rain-break, that stole the show, when the Emperor struck back with vengeance. This really was the high point of the match, and for strange reasons. Never before had anyone seen Federer getting stretched to such an extent on grass. He was huffing, puffing panting, running and sweating. Yet only the acutest of observers would have noticed it as the Swiss always carries a band of icy coolness on his forehead that disguises the human he actually is. This was also the part when eventually the Duracell powered Nadal who otherwise appears tireless, suffered severe fatigue, more mental than physical though. The good and the bad thing about Nadal is that whenever u see him play, by the middle of the 1st set, he looks so tired as if he's playing the fifth one. Yet when he’s actually playing the fifth one, he looks so fresh as if he's just started off with the 1st set. Nobody ever wants to get into a rally with Rafa. The more you make him play, the more lethal he becomes, which's probably why it required Federer to use his deadliest weapon, the ace, to elude Rafa's magnetic racquet from heaving n slashing the ball. Federer served 26 aces in the match, most of them to make phenomenal comebacks. He saved two championship points in the third set and pulled off the tie breaker- stand n deliver style, thanks to those aces again.
So Part Two had the world no.1 clinching the 3rd and the 4th sets, both in tie breakers, as neither of the players found it possible to break the other's serve. Federer had an impressive tiebreaker record anyway. He still lived dangerously though, hanging on, game after game, raising calls that went IN(or OUT of!) his favour by a margin of not more than a millimeter. Just when it seemed to be the case of a brain-dead patient being supported by apparatus, life suddenly breathed in to Federer and the game he played after that would probably have cleared all the doubts regarding who really was the greatest men’s singles player of all times-so much so, that the standards defined by the likes of Borg n Sampras looked mediocre in retrospect. It was particularly the fourth set tie breaker that saw the god in Federer emerge out of nowhere and send Nadal spinning on his wheels. Then there were the rallies, that had the ball darting from baseline to sideline to baseline and so on. Heads turned and hearts beat fast and one would have thought that tennis was not a game for those suffering from spondilitis and heart disease. Rain came again with the scores tied at two sets two games a piece and deuce! Time for Part Three of the super flick…
Back in Karachi, by now India had lost the Asia Cup thanks to a "return to form" of our fabulous batting line up. I was obviously not bothered about it. I'd made my choice- already having asked God that if there had to be a shortage of supply of goodies for me that very day, then please grant me a Federer win and adjust everything else against it. I didn’t care what %ile I got.. There were 16 mocks still to go. I didn’t even care if India won or lost as cricket has become a weekend passtime nowadays, thanks to the multiplex gloss of T20, we don’t prefer the art movies of the yesteryears anymore( read ODI's n tests). Cricket fanatics, kindly forgive me for that!
Now back to tennis- the greatest game ever played. Those who did watch the final know I've a reason to say this. So, finally it was 6-6 in the final set and as per the rules there was not going to be any tiebreaker, something Federer has always been so good at. What a climax! In the latter half of the match Federer had always looked to have a slight upper hand even though the balance remained tantalizingly poised well till the very end. Both the players were merciless on each other as they raised further calls, this time desperate ones.7-6 7-7,8-7.. The cat n mouse game continued and it looked as if it'd never end. It was already nine in the night and the neon signs in London had started to glow. It was 4 hrs 46 minutes into the match when Federer failed to improvise the drift of the wind and lost two consecutive points of his own serve. As fans cried Roger in unison and Fed's own wife closed her eyes in sheer helplessness, Nadal fired a cross-court bullet by a flick off his wrist and Roger Federer was held listless. Serving for the match Rafa lost the 1st point as the god in Federer played his last magical shot, seconds before the gods up in heaven played dice with him, as he lost the match and the championship in what was the longest men’s final ever played at the Wimbledon.
Today, as I think of those defining moments of the final, I find my eyes moistened and my skin goosebumped. Wow! Was it just a tennis match? No, it wasn't. It was something else. Something language can't really describe. You have to feel it for yourselves. Nadal, when asked how he felt as he lay on ground after winning the match, replied, "it's very difficult to describe. Thank you!".. Fed n Rafa might not be so articulate in English as some of their other compatriots, yet their vague wordings expressed it all. Both were all praise for the way the other played. They might be the best of buddies off the court but one felt as if Nadal was more happy for the match finally having come to an end rather than for him becoming the Wimbledon champion! Even the smile on his face was overshadowed by the exclamation on his forehead. Still, bite he did, not just the golden trophy in his trademark style, but also a slice of Federer's glory. It's feared, this may mark a u-turn in Federer's illustrious career. A very strong comeback also can't be ruled out, such is the stuff legends are made of.
Those of you who didn’t watch the heavens being brought down to earth yesterday, may you rot in hell. Yet for those who did, don't u agree that irrespective of the result, it was tennis that emerged victorious. The game was lifted to new heights with yesterday's match and even Fed and Nadal would find it difficult to surpass those standards in the times to come.
There were quite a few moral lessons to be learnt from the match though..
1. A god is a god as long as he's not confronted by another.
2. Nobody is god and the One Who is plays dice to make sure of it.
3. Never lose hope in life. You can always make a comeback even from two and a half sets down.
4. Mental strength and not stroke of genius separates the grain from the chaff, the special from the ordinary.
5. You need not BE the best to BEAT the best.
6. Persistence pays, haste may lead to waste.
7. However much you change your lines of fate, after all, we are destiny's children.
8. Whatever goes up, must come down.
The Men’s Singles Wimbledon Final, 2008 was such an enlightenment that suddenly all those oft-repeated platitudinal quotations have started making sense to me: what Longfellow said about the lives of all great men, what Robert Frost said of the miles to go, what Shakespeare said about the world being a stage and may be also what GB Shaw said about cricket! Never mind.
For centuries, man has been smothered with change all around him but somewhere down his psyche, he hates it. That’s probably why most of us cling to an old pair of jeans even as the new one lies neatly folded in the wardrobe. Same applies to our other choices too. The one who rules is prayed to rule further as, all these years we had attached our own aspirations and desires with the crowning glory of the victorious. Their successes gave our whims n fancies wings of desire. We started relating to our idols so much that they became inseparable parts of our existence. Even today, that’s how a fan is born. That’s how the masses follow sports. That’s how the Mortal Gods are created. And, when the mental image we have of them changes in the real world, either we try to ignore it and pray for them, or worse still, when a string of failures takes the sheen away from those fallen idols, we shun them and adopt new idols to give our vulnerable egos a sense of undiminished false pride..And you know what, that’s how bloody life goes on. Not a very sporting people. Are we?
Anyways, so far so bad. Once back home I thought to reboot my mood by watching sports. It was an important day for sport lovers for two reasons :1.the Asia Cup final between India n Sri Lanka and 2. the Wimbledon final between Roger n Rafael, both were lined up for primetime. The Asia Cup final started earlier. I dint care to watch the 1st innings as I find cricket rather boring these days. So I worked my time out with the remote to find Star Sports where Wimbledon was being telecast. Not many people are avid tennis fans in this part of the world. Cricket is their religion- as was mine before I quit murti-puja of the men in blue. So I'd to manually tune the channel until I could strike an optimum balance between the grains and the noise.
The Match
The Wimbledon final was supposed to have started by six thirty had it not been for rain-delay. By now, Sri Lanka had started slogging in the penultimate overs of the cricket match(as if I cared!). I was dying for the spectacle in the All England Club to commence. After a few hiccups, the match finally started near seven or seven thirty. I don’t remember exactly when as my eyes were continually glued to the telly and it was quite a task to lift them up just to watch the living room wall clock.
The atmosphere in the centre court was ecstatic, with grey clouds hovering around still, wind blowing like a serpent, changing its directions- all symbolic of bigger things to follow. The grass looked a bit slippery, ringing warning bells to the fast movers on the court. The setting for the finale was absolutely perfect- a 15000 strong star studded yet emotive audience who’d paid as much as 5000 pounds for a pair of tickets, the media people with hundreds of cameras and flashlights, neatly dressed ball-pickers, expressionless referees with walkie talkies, experienced commentators dissecting player profiles, the who's who of the tennis fraternity, other celebs, friends and families of the two champions- all surrounding a lush green Wimbledon centre court, which in tennis lingo, is said to be the best place to win and also the best place to lose for anybody. Not anybody reaches the ground zero of tennis though, where careers are made and destroyed. But I am not talking about just anybody here. I'm talking about the two finalists, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal who the crowd welcomed with a reverberating roar of cheers and applauses. Commentators grew hysterical from that point on with Viay Amritraj of the "ABC of tennis" fame even going on to analyse Federer’s coming out to the court ahead of Nadal !!
Until recently, Switzerland was known for its chocolates n watches, Spain for bull fighting n football. But it was all set to change soon as after Sunday, the two countries would be known more for their tigers, the powers that govern not just tennis but millions of minds that watch the game with bated breath, every time the titans clash.
Federer-Nadal contests have always proved to be ferocity v/s gravitas, style v/s substance and magic v/s logic, all rolled into a single package. This was no different but for the fact that both the players displayed all the above qualities at different points in the match, overcoming their self-imposed limits and venturing into uncharted territories never seen before.
One must mention that there's quite an interesting comparison between the two players. They're similar, yet they are different. Both measure 6 ft 1 in height yet one is muscular and the other is frail. Both don’t emote while playing, yet after winning a match, one simply throws his wristband to the crowd as the other throws himself over. Both are the best in their own right, yet one's the no.1 and other no.2. Both have stronger forehands yet one's left handed and the other is right handed. Both are chasing Borg's record, but of different kinds. Both have their heads held high in the clouds, but feet firmly footed- on grass for one, on clay for the other!! Both tend to get better with every passing game, yet one likes to stay put and deliver the winners while the other likes to run all around the park, wallowing in dust n sweat. One is elegant while the other powerful. One tricks while the other toils. And varyingly, one proposes while the other disposes. Die hard fans of the Spaniard are free to think of it as an analogy between man and God!!
On to the match, the 1st set was a repeat of Rolland Garros with Nadal having Federer completely out of sorts. The second set was no different and it seemed a humiliating straight sets loss for Federer was imminent. Lost he did, the 1st two sets 6-4 6-4 as Nadal continued to dig deep into Federer's weakening backhand. Never before in his entire career had the Swiss got 12 break points and converted only one. Both had a phenomenal winning streak before coming to this match. Federer had a 5 and a half year streak of 65 matches on grass. Moreover he was yet to lose a set this year and had lost just 3 sets in the last 3 years in Wimbledon-all to Nadal(unconfirmed data). Nadal too had an overall winning streak of 23 matches, winning most of them on clay.
Drama finally unfolded like a George Lucas flick, interspersed by.. rains(I told you). For some reason, every time rain delayed the match I would switch the tv off and whenever I turned it back on, the audio video lag would scare me, sending my thought traffic berserk, making me wonder whether the roar was for a Federer point or a Nadal one. Part One of the blockbuster was when Vampire Nadal sucked the blood out of a beleaguered Federer's neck, leaving him tottering at two sets down. It was however, Part Two, after the rain-break, that stole the show, when the Emperor struck back with vengeance. This really was the high point of the match, and for strange reasons. Never before had anyone seen Federer getting stretched to such an extent on grass. He was huffing, puffing panting, running and sweating. Yet only the acutest of observers would have noticed it as the Swiss always carries a band of icy coolness on his forehead that disguises the human he actually is. This was also the part when eventually the Duracell powered Nadal who otherwise appears tireless, suffered severe fatigue, more mental than physical though. The good and the bad thing about Nadal is that whenever u see him play, by the middle of the 1st set, he looks so tired as if he's playing the fifth one. Yet when he’s actually playing the fifth one, he looks so fresh as if he's just started off with the 1st set. Nobody ever wants to get into a rally with Rafa. The more you make him play, the more lethal he becomes, which's probably why it required Federer to use his deadliest weapon, the ace, to elude Rafa's magnetic racquet from heaving n slashing the ball. Federer served 26 aces in the match, most of them to make phenomenal comebacks. He saved two championship points in the third set and pulled off the tie breaker- stand n deliver style, thanks to those aces again.
So Part Two had the world no.1 clinching the 3rd and the 4th sets, both in tie breakers, as neither of the players found it possible to break the other's serve. Federer had an impressive tiebreaker record anyway. He still lived dangerously though, hanging on, game after game, raising calls that went IN(or OUT of!) his favour by a margin of not more than a millimeter. Just when it seemed to be the case of a brain-dead patient being supported by apparatus, life suddenly breathed in to Federer and the game he played after that would probably have cleared all the doubts regarding who really was the greatest men’s singles player of all times-so much so, that the standards defined by the likes of Borg n Sampras looked mediocre in retrospect. It was particularly the fourth set tie breaker that saw the god in Federer emerge out of nowhere and send Nadal spinning on his wheels. Then there were the rallies, that had the ball darting from baseline to sideline to baseline and so on. Heads turned and hearts beat fast and one would have thought that tennis was not a game for those suffering from spondilitis and heart disease. Rain came again with the scores tied at two sets two games a piece and deuce! Time for Part Three of the super flick…
Back in Karachi, by now India had lost the Asia Cup thanks to a "return to form" of our fabulous batting line up. I was obviously not bothered about it. I'd made my choice- already having asked God that if there had to be a shortage of supply of goodies for me that very day, then please grant me a Federer win and adjust everything else against it. I didn’t care what %ile I got.. There were 16 mocks still to go. I didn’t even care if India won or lost as cricket has become a weekend passtime nowadays, thanks to the multiplex gloss of T20, we don’t prefer the art movies of the yesteryears anymore( read ODI's n tests). Cricket fanatics, kindly forgive me for that!
Now back to tennis- the greatest game ever played. Those who did watch the final know I've a reason to say this. So, finally it was 6-6 in the final set and as per the rules there was not going to be any tiebreaker, something Federer has always been so good at. What a climax! In the latter half of the match Federer had always looked to have a slight upper hand even though the balance remained tantalizingly poised well till the very end. Both the players were merciless on each other as they raised further calls, this time desperate ones.7-6 7-7,8-7.. The cat n mouse game continued and it looked as if it'd never end. It was already nine in the night and the neon signs in London had started to glow. It was 4 hrs 46 minutes into the match when Federer failed to improvise the drift of the wind and lost two consecutive points of his own serve. As fans cried Roger in unison and Fed's own wife closed her eyes in sheer helplessness, Nadal fired a cross-court bullet by a flick off his wrist and Roger Federer was held listless. Serving for the match Rafa lost the 1st point as the god in Federer played his last magical shot, seconds before the gods up in heaven played dice with him, as he lost the match and the championship in what was the longest men’s final ever played at the Wimbledon.
Today, as I think of those defining moments of the final, I find my eyes moistened and my skin goosebumped. Wow! Was it just a tennis match? No, it wasn't. It was something else. Something language can't really describe. You have to feel it for yourselves. Nadal, when asked how he felt as he lay on ground after winning the match, replied, "it's very difficult to describe. Thank you!".. Fed n Rafa might not be so articulate in English as some of their other compatriots, yet their vague wordings expressed it all. Both were all praise for the way the other played. They might be the best of buddies off the court but one felt as if Nadal was more happy for the match finally having come to an end rather than for him becoming the Wimbledon champion! Even the smile on his face was overshadowed by the exclamation on his forehead. Still, bite he did, not just the golden trophy in his trademark style, but also a slice of Federer's glory. It's feared, this may mark a u-turn in Federer's illustrious career. A very strong comeback also can't be ruled out, such is the stuff legends are made of.
Those of you who didn’t watch the heavens being brought down to earth yesterday, may you rot in hell. Yet for those who did, don't u agree that irrespective of the result, it was tennis that emerged victorious. The game was lifted to new heights with yesterday's match and even Fed and Nadal would find it difficult to surpass those standards in the times to come.
There were quite a few moral lessons to be learnt from the match though..
1. A god is a god as long as he's not confronted by another.
2. Nobody is god and the One Who is plays dice to make sure of it.
3. Never lose hope in life. You can always make a comeback even from two and a half sets down.
4. Mental strength and not stroke of genius separates the grain from the chaff, the special from the ordinary.
5. You need not BE the best to BEAT the best.
6. Persistence pays, haste may lead to waste.
7. However much you change your lines of fate, after all, we are destiny's children.
8. Whatever goes up, must come down.
The Men’s Singles Wimbledon Final, 2008 was such an enlightenment that suddenly all those oft-repeated platitudinal quotations have started making sense to me: what Longfellow said about the lives of all great men, what Robert Frost said of the miles to go, what Shakespeare said about the world being a stage and may be also what GB Shaw said about cricket! Never mind.
For centuries, man has been smothered with change all around him but somewhere down his psyche, he hates it. That’s probably why most of us cling to an old pair of jeans even as the new one lies neatly folded in the wardrobe. Same applies to our other choices too. The one who rules is prayed to rule further as, all these years we had attached our own aspirations and desires with the crowning glory of the victorious. Their successes gave our whims n fancies wings of desire. We started relating to our idols so much that they became inseparable parts of our existence. Even today, that’s how a fan is born. That’s how the masses follow sports. That’s how the Mortal Gods are created. And, when the mental image we have of them changes in the real world, either we try to ignore it and pray for them, or worse still, when a string of failures takes the sheen away from those fallen idols, we shun them and adopt new idols to give our vulnerable egos a sense of undiminished false pride..And you know what, that’s how bloody life goes on. Not a very sporting people. Are we?
