sports – Page 2 – It's Dai Time

This morning, while still in bed, I turned on the TV to find the end of the men’s Wimbledon final playing. Federer and Roddick were in their final set and I squinted for a second. Were they in a tiebreaker? What was going on?

No, the two men had been engaged in an epic struggle that had taken the set to double digits.

Of course, in the end, Federer managed to play a little better a little longer, and broke Roddick’s serve to win the final set 16 games to 14 games. The match had lasted over 4 hours.

I don’t watch tennis. I used to play a bit of tennis back in high school, but I don’t think I’ve picked a racket 5 times since then. It was hard, however, despite my time away from the sport, to not feel like I had watched something important.

And to not sink into the eyes of Andy Roddick, after hitting his final shot out of bounds, and feel his pain. Apparently, Federer has won more important tennis tournaments than anyone else ever. And he’s ranked higher. And he’s considered by most to be the best in the world.

But a 30-game final set? To hold serve and go toe-to-toe for over 90 minutes and then, in a matter of minutes, have it all end in a second-place finish, to get a big plate instead of a big trophy. It has to suck.

To you, Andy Roddick. I’m sorry that today ended up being one of the most painful matches of your career. You went the distance.

There’s a powerful human effect that occurs in crowds.

Large groups of people, if convinced to believe in the same thing, can be a supremely powerful force, whether its an Australian rugby team, a political party, or a cause of some kind.

Crowds can unite in impromptu cheers in near unison, in group activities and cooperative destruction with little advance planning or personal relationships between those involved.

But in a spurt of emotion over a sports team winning/losing a championship or a candidate winning/losing an election, groups of strangers find the motivation to band together and block traffic, or flip parked cars, or participate in group activities that would be awkward in other situations.

The odd thing is that this odd energy is present in both victory and defeat, both extreme emotional highs and lows. Why is it that we work so instinctively well in groups and clans when we are filled with energy and emotion? Does this speak to a piece of our basic being that tells us we belong in packs and tribes – that no man is truly an island?

Or do we just seek like-minded individuals when we are elated or outraged because it gives us all more power than we individually would have?

Or do we seek like-minded individuals our entire lives and it is simply more obvious when our emotions run high?

I’m not sure what the point is. I suppose it may be: if you want to do something extraordinary or dangerous, find a group of like-minded people, pump yourselves up to a point of charged emotions, and the rest will come naturally.

Tag: sports (Page 2 of 2)

Day 144: tennis?

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