Losing to win

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."

Champions are boring!!!

It is a rainy evening. Its already 8:00 p.m. and I'm anxiously waiting for my mum to serve up some dinner. I am really hungry after a nice long and brisk walk at the seaface. In the midst of this agonising wait, I suddenly learnt an invaluable lesson in excellence!!!


As a matter of habiutual ritual, I was flipping channels... India was getting thrashed at the hands of the archrivals Pakistan in an important Asia Cup cricket match. How could I have continued watching the ordeal! Hence, as a natural progression, I switched to watching the Wimbledon!!! Let me tell you, it's one of the most classy sporting tournaments held accross all disciplines accross the wide spectrum of international sporting arena. Everything about the tournament exudes class, from the ground staff to the ball boys to even the crowd. Even the applause after every point somehow sounds perfectly in sync and rhythemic.

Yesterday, I happen to catch the Quarter Final clash between the World No. 1 Roger Federer and Mario Ancic, who has the distinction of being the last man to have defeated FedEx, on his preffered grass surface, way back in 2002... The champ, hasnt lost a match since!!!


The match, mildly put, was a highly boring, one sided affair with short streaks of brilliance on display by the gutsy challenger, Ancic. But as anticipated, he failed to make too much of a headroom and lost the match in straight sets. And then in hindsight I sat wondering.... Why do so many people die to see such boring matches?? What's so great about this dumb guy who just doesnt know the art of loosing?? What's so great about him??


And then, on serious contemplation... I slowly began to find answers to my questions. The first premise I established was "Champions, more often than not, are boring!!"



More often than not, all of us are in our average lifetime, are faced with our big moments of truth. These are moments which decide, how the coming generations would remember us, or rather, will they remember us at all or not! Champions, as species, are plagued with this habbit of treating such important moments as if they are inconsequential!!!


They go about doing what they do best, the way they know best, which in most cases, is by beating the rest!!! Champions are almost always on top of their game. They are sheer antonyms of excitement. Obviously as one gets excited and nervous, only when one is uncertain about the result. Champions are always sure of what the result would be!!


More importantly, and boringly true champions are humble. As a press person, you will never be able to extract a 'headline statement' out of them which would provoke further sensationalism. They'd never criticise, never throw brickbats as their peers. Aaarrggghhhh so irritating!! They are agonisingly monotonous and colourless in their personalities. They are a gossip columnist's nightmare!!

Also, something which baffles me, is the sheer hunger to win that these morons have. I mean.. why would Sachin want to score a run more in his lifetime... he already has thousands of them stacked up anyways.... or probably.. whats the joy Federer would get in lifting the same damn wimbledon trophy 6 consecutive times...isn't he bored of doing the same thing again and again??? Or to top it all.. whats the fun, Schumi would have got... going almost insanely around a race circuit at top speed like a rat lost in his hole.... for more than a decade!!!

I mean.. there are no answers to these questions!!! But yes, through all this contemplation, I have finally concluded that "Champions are boring" - Probably that's what makes them the champions they are!!!