Illustration: Eric Lobbecke Source: News Limited
IN broken English, Rafael Nadal, in the post-match interview after his victory over Bernard Tomic in the third round of the 2011 Australian Open, said that he brought his game to the net because: "Today from the baseline I did not have enough good shots to destroy him."
There was a pause. Perhaps "destroy" wasn't the best word to use when you've just defeated the feeble beacon of Australian men's tennis. Appropriate, perhaps, but not tactful. Commentator Jim Courier jumped in: "To 'destroy him,' that's nice." Nadal hastily grabbed the microphone back. "I'm sorry," he laughed, eager to explain. "It was only the word in English I have, I didn't know another one."
He was light-heartedly embarrassed by his fumbling of the English language, but perhaps he shouldn't have been.
To "destroy" Tomic is exactly what he meant to do; what every professional tennis player needs to do to their opponent. Tennis, at its core, is about winning.
I once suggested to a room full of students that tennis was the most competitive sport. One of them rolled his eyes at me. "You've got to be joking. Have you tried rowing? There's nothing more competitive than rowing."
I could see his angle. Tennis, thanks to the likes of the ever-graceful Roger Federer, does not immediately appear to be a gruelling sport. Players take small breaks and little bites of banana between sets. Their battle armour is snow white; they don't wrestle and clamour for a ball in the mud.
The ferocity and urgency of other sports might make them appear competitive, but in most cases a team or player could win their contest without actually "destroying" their opponents. Such sports might depend on speed, strength, accuracy or pressure under time constraints, rather than directly beating an opponent.
When I say that tennis is about winning, I do not mean to discard its social or sportsmanlike qualities. Tennis should be played for the fun of the game, not solely for the prospect of victory. Tennis is not about playing dirty or winning at any cost, however, a tennis match cannot be complete until a player has won, and to do so they must destroy the other.
Tennis is about winning in a way that other sports are not. Many sporting events are in fact a race. In swimming, for example, each competitor swims to the best of their ability, as fast as they can. They do not engage directly with their opponents. In theory, their ability to swim should not be disrupted by their competitors. Each swimmer focuses on their own race and the competitor with the fastest time is declared the winner.
Sports like football, netball, hockey and basketball - these team sports do require direct engagement with an opponent, and the strategies and abilities of one team are impeded by the other. However, there is always a time-limit imposed on these sports; whether the Diamonds or the Ferns come out on top depends on one team scoring more points in an hour of play.
If the result is a draw, teams will play into overtime to determine a victor. (Unless it's the AFL grand final, which you'll have to replay).
Famously, tennis has no time limit. A match could take a mere half-hour, as when Steffi Graf won the 1988 French Open against Natasha Zvereva, or could last 11 hours and five minutes, in the case of John Isner and Nicholas Mahut during the 2010 Wimbledon Championships.
This is the beauty of tennis: there is always a second chance to claim back the game.
You always have a second serve up your sleeve. You can't win by a fluke or the advantage of serving first: you must win the game (or the set) by two points (or games), respectively.
When you win, you must do so decisively. You haven't lost until your opponent demonstrates that she is decidedly superior, but when they drive home that final point it's as good as hammering in the final nail. They have destroyed you.
The good news for any player is that it's not over until it's over. And no doubt Nadal is still aiming for no less than total destruction.
Erin Handley is an editor for Right Now, an online journal of Human Rights in Australia.
