The tennis has been a source of some marital discord in our house this week. After today's marathon, Anna has come away the happier of us; and I am sulking.
I don't really know why we care. Both Federer and Nadal are very rich, already have their place in the history of the game, and in Michael Flanders' memorable phrase "are bashing the ball with the skin of a cat." - here with a slightly bizarre video. However, we did care, and I think it says something - possibly surprising - about both of us.
Anna likes - as she rather patronisingly puts it - "little Rafa" because he is endearing and quite sweet, as well as being astonishingly dogged and brilliant. She wanted him to win today because he tried so hard and visibly wanted it so much. Anna is generally in favour of Nadal, finding this recent story about him travelling back to Barcelona on economy rather lovely - as it indeed is.
By contrast, Federer irritates Anna by monogramming his kit and looking smug, which - to be fair - he does a lot of the time. He does however, have a lot to be smug about, but not yet enough for my liking. Where he stands in the pantheon of great players is still being determined, but I - like others, have been keen to canonise him (in tennis terms) for some time. When he worked, he worked perfectly, and was joyous to behold. But for me, his losses this year have been hard to take. It some ways - entirely unfairly - it looks like he cannot win once his aura has gone, and that calls into question the genuineness of his achievement to date. He is still an amazing player, but no longer challenges for the title of the best ever. Because those people fight back. And so far, Roger hasn't been able to do so - or at least not to actually win. So it doesn't look like a legend is being coined, but merely another great player now fading away. I am using "merely" in a slightly odd way here, but the point is valid: I will be disappointed if Federer doesn't come back, and I don't think he will (unless Nadal is injured soon - not impossible - but that wouldn't be the same).
What does this mean? Well, in short, I think it means that I am interested in history being made; and Anna places more importance on people being nice and deserving it. Come to think about it, that's not too much of a surprise after all.
1 comment:
Humm, I think perhaps you're being a bit harsh on R-Fed, he did have glandular fever earlier in the year and in some ways it's the mark of the man that he's seriously in competition for anything other than the record for spending the longest amount of time tucked up in bed having his brow soothed by maidens.
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