The Cruelest Sport

            Each sport presents its own array of challenges, both athletic and cerebral ranging from precision hand-eye coordination to cardiovascular endurance.  To argue one is inherently more difficult that another from a physical or mental standpoint is an act of hubris, and worse, a point shrouded in tremendous subjectivity.  Nonetheless, in terms of its capacity for unimaginable cruelty to the participant, one stands alone.  The most frightening activities, in sports as well as life, require decisions of great consequence, made quickly, decisively, and most importantly, unilaterally.  Athletes, in the heat of competition, make countless decisions which impact the outcome of sporting events.  However, within the context of those activities are numerous conversations with teammates, coaches, and caddies, allowing for not only clarification and discussion, but for the simple emotional salve that is a friendly voice.  One sport, despite its patrician roots, isolates its participants, and leaves them to stew in the horrors of their own mind for hours on end.

            Tennis players are rather average looking physical specimens as professional athletes are concerned.  Its most decorated champion, Roger Federer, stands 6’1’’ and weighs around 185 pounds.  Were he not famous, his body would be no more noteworthy than any other fit male of similar age.  Certainly, he is phenomenally fit, coordinated in a manner us mere mortals cannot fathom, and blessed with a natural kinesthetic grace that John McEnroe likened to Baryshnikov.  Tennis virtuosos lack the sheer muscle mass of football players, the striking length of basketball players, the blazing speed of track stars, or even the pain tolerance of boxers and mixed martial artists.  Still, they face one obstacle unlike any of their colleagues.  

            A tennis court, specifically the one located at the center of Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, is a form of public solitary confinement.  Hour after hour, a competitor may hear the roar of the crowd, may see the faces of family and friends, may even discern encouraging words, but still acts wholly alone.  Every strategic indiscretion, every miniscule mistiming of a groundstroke, every flawed footstep occurs without the wisdom of an engaged observer who can correct it.  Coaching is not allowed, and for those hours, one succeeds or fails predicated solely upon their ability to react, adapt, and control their own psyche.  Perhaps more than in any other sport (though this phenomenon is certainly visible in golf), an athlete’s mental frailties are illuminated like the Christmas tree in Rockefeller center.  When the strands of sanity begin to fray and unwind, no one can cool the seething ebullitions of emotion within and certainly, no one can offer that token of sage advice.  Is it an accident that tennis’s most noteworthy champions are often characterized by one of two personality types?

            The first is the unflappable, placid, almost robotic absence of emotion, methodically delivering upon their athletic gifts until the task is done.  Think of Sampras, Federer, and Borg.  The second is the inwardly directed fury that embraces the crucible of the court and combats it with fireworks visible to all.  Think of McEnroe, Nadal, or Connors.  Every booming, self-motivating “come on!” ensures that the heightening of emotions occurs on their terms and no one else’s.  In either case, composure becomes as relevant as competency, temerity as necessary as talent.   Roger Federer has been blessed with an almost inhuman quantity of the “talent.”  David Foster Wallace, a man whose linguistic artillery compares with my own much as an anti-aircraft bazooka compares with a flyswatter, described watching Roger Federer in reverential terms.  To steal one quote from this treasure of sports-writing feels like eating but one bite of a meal at the finest restaurant in Paris, and yet, “…Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws.”  Indeed, from the “great liquid whip” of his forehand, to the “eel-like all body snap” of his serve, he handles a racquet as Hendrix handled a guitar or Monet handled a brush.  It is art as much as sport.  But tennis is cruel…Federer will never reclaim his throne even as beautiful angles and elegant spins remind us all of what once was.  Perhaps as a side effect of his prodigious talents, he has learned only to emerge victorious simply from greater skill and not from superior fortitude.  Now, as the inevitabilities of age sap his physically unmatched strokes, he is forced to rely upon a tenacity he never was required to develop.  Some may contend that this deficiency detracts from his status as a champion.  I cannot argue.  However, one is reminded that the presence of such a deficiency speaks volumes of the transcendent, scintillating aptitude that he placed on display for the preceding years.