This article, written by Raghu Krishnan appeared in Times of India on Jun 13, 2011
It has had a profound influence on me, hence I thought it deserves to be shared:
The 2011 French Open tennis championship will be remembered for the final between the then-five-time men's singles' title-holder Rafael Nadal and the winner of 16 Grand Slam tournaments, Roger Federer. It will be remembered for the 220-minute semifinal which Nadal in almost journalistic style previewed as "a match between the world's best tennis player (Novak Djokovic) and the greatest player in history (Federer)". However, the real champion of this year's French Open was neither Nadal, nor Federer, nor Djokovic, and not even the other semi-finalist Andy Murray, but the virtually unknown Michael Berrer.
It was while playing Berrer in the third round of the French Open that Murray twisted his ankle while rushing to return a drop shot. When the match resumed, Murray, with a heavily-strapped ankle, limped through to a three-set win by going for his shots so that he did not aggravate the injury by staying too long on the court. Until the injury, Berrer had been playing drop shots to exploit Murray's reluctance to leave the baseline. He stopped playing drop shots once the injured Murray returned to the court. Berrer later explained that he was reluctant to play drop shots against an injured opponent who could not move freely.
It is only over the last few seasons that the 30-year-old Berrer has graduated from the level of a journeyman, meaning someone not in the top 100 of the fiercely-contested ATP world men's singles rankings. After reaching the third round of the French Open, Berrer is ranked 79. That could have been much higher if he had defeated the injured Murray, ranked four. Weeks ago, Murray had tormented an injured Gilles Simon with drop shots and been booed off the court at Monte Carlo. Which could explain why the Guardian's tennis correspondent Kevin Mitchell described the 24-year-old Murray's French Open triumph as "a distinctly odd win over Berrer who took compassion for his fellow human beings to heights only Mother Teresa would understand."
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