A spirited battle

Monday, 6th July, 2009

I got back home from the gym at around half-past eight in the evening. I’m feeling drowsy already, thanks to the lack of sleep last night after the Wimbledon finals. What a match! Just couldn't get my mind off it. Two of the current best, throwing the kitchen sinks at each other. It was hard to believe that Andy Roddick put up such a fight against the King of the grass court, Roger Federer. Especially, after watching the way he had lost in 2004 and 2005 Wimbledon finals. You've just got to give it to the guy for making Roger run around so much. It took Roger some four and a half hours to break Andy's serve. Unfortunately, that was all it took for Roger to win his 15th grand-slam title.

Roger Federer versus Andy Roddick. The battle reminded me very much of the famous 1998 Wimbledon finals between Pete Sampras and Goran Ivaniševic, back in the time when I first started following tennis. In fact, Roger Federer has a style that was very evident with Pete Sampras. Gracious, elegant moves on the court, strong forehand and above all, a cool mind.

Andy Roddick, like Goran Ivaniševic, has a very powerful serve. Andy is considered to have the best serves currently. So was the case with Goran during his prime days. Goran was the first left-handed tennis star that I'd seen and he caught my eye instantly, tall, piercing eyes, with serves that would make an ordinary player run for his life. He was a very animated character as well and so, it was fun to watch him play. This particular match, like the one yesterday, was a game of aces. Goran kept piercing Pete's defenses time and again with it. But Pete, very much like Roger, kept his nerves and won it in the end.

The similarities between Roger & Pete and Andy & Goran made yesterday's match look like the one from the past. But, it was good luck that won Roger the title. I guess it’s a sort of luck that rides along the champs that puts them a notch ahead of the rest.

The case with such matches often, is that as the game progresses, you tend to support the underdog, just for playing out of his skin.

There he was playing his heart out, not just against one player, but against the entire crowd. This was very obvious in the semi-finals between Andy Murray and Andy Roddick as well. Murray, being an Englishman had all the support till the very end. But it was Roddick who came out good at the end of the game.

This was the case in the finals as well. Andy seemed like man who had come out with a kind of hope that you'd most often associate with an innocent little child, a hope against the odds. No one gave him a chance. They just thought he'd be a push over, a win for Roger in three or four sets. But the way Andy played proved most of them wrong.

Although Roger won the championship, although Roger stole the limelight, it would be fitting to say that Andy had won a million hearts. It was pretty emotional to see him sob after the match, but he'd left me high on spirits. And to applaud Roger while he was doing his lap-of-honor spoke volumes of the man's character. This was unlike the way Roger behaved when Nadal beat him in the Australian open earlier this year.

Quite often in life, it takes a lot of courage and self-belief to come out as a winner when you've been put down. It’s like a battle against the whole wide world. It takes a lot to fight a loosing battle. But when you fight it out with the right spirits, you'll always be admired.

Anil Kumble, on the day he retired said "To Sachin, the first newspaper cutting I have says Tendulkar, Kumble score centuries in U-15 cricket. When you came into the team, everyone said he would break all records. When I started playing, people said I wouldn’t last two Tests. You had the challenge of proving them right while I had the challenge of proving them wrong."

Success is not just about proving people right or showing them what they believe you can do. It’s about fighting it out all alone, against all odds and proving people wrong. This kind of success leaves an impression, an impression that would never be forgotten. Isn't it?