In the last few days, the sport of tennis has given the world a number of stories that could serve as examples that go beyond the results obtained on the court and sport in general.
They were stories of courage, never-say-die attitude and the ability to beat opponents in front of a hostile crowd. There were also stories of friendship that supersedes victory or loss, and the ability to say ‘good-bye’ at the peak of one’s career. There were then stories of real underdogs that overcome all odds to notch historic achievements.
Flavia Pennetta won the US Open, her first Grand Slam title, at 33 years of age. She announced her retirement minutes after she beat her long-time friend Roberta Vinci, with whom she shared a lot of her tennis career, both having been raised in the Puglia region and against whom she played dozens of times as they grew up living just 60 kilometres apart.
It was a great day for Pennetta, plagued as she had been by injuries in the past two years, and her victory is an example of how it is possible to conquer what life throws at you and succeed. She was about to give up two years ago when she had a serious wrist injury, but persisted and was rewarded for her effort. Now she can retire knowing that she will be remembered and her name is notched in history. Some athletes never know when to call it a day; Pennetta grabbed the moment while she is at her peak.
Vinci may have lost the final, but she is a winner in her own right too. First of all, she beat the until-then unbeatable Serena Williams, who was on her way to complete a Grand Slam in tennis that has been missing since the Steffi Graf days. Vinci did so in spite of playing against Serena before a whole stadium of people supporting the American. At one moment, after winning a great point, Vinci shouted towards the crowd: “Some applause for me please”. It epitomised how hard it was to battle against her opponent who was getting all the cheers.
The crowd’s attitude towards Vinci changed only at the end of the semi-final, and she won them over with her broken English in an after-match interview in which it was evident that she was overwhelmed by what she had accomplished by breaking Serena’s Grand Slam dream.
That, after the final, the two Italian players embraced the way they did, sat next to each other and giggled like teenagers as they awaited for the presentation ceremony, and joked with each other while receiving their trophies – at one point Vinci snatched the winner’s cheque of $3.3 million dollars from Pennetta’s hand – was a great example of how friendship can be strong and free of bitterness in spite of there being a winner and a loser.
In the men’s competition, it was Novak Djokovic who won the title. Unlike Pennetta, it was his 10th Grand Slam title, the third this year. So he’s used to be there at the top. And he is also used to having the smaller share of support in the courts he plays in. Whether he’s playing Murray, Nadal, Wawrinka or, worse, Federer, for some reason it is always Djokovic who has fewer fans in the stadium.
But, rather than having a negative effect on him, this adversity seems to galvanise the Serbian player and his never-say-die attitude sees him through. In Sunday’s final against Federer, Djokovic faced a hostile crowd that jeered him when he made mistakes and applauded his faults, considered poor etiquette in the game of tennis. But he ploughed on, at the end of the last point looking up at the spectators as if to say: “Who’s the number one?”