One vs one was sacred in tennis. No longer.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Sometimes to win a match you need to swallow your vomit. This isn’t pride, it’s a tactic.
Somdev Devvarman, on his way to becoming a full-time tennis coach, is re-telling a tale he heard on the tennis tour from 20 years ago about two top players. It’s Miami, a cruel heat rising, the match tight. One player looks like he’s going to pass out.
The second, who’s throwing up in his mouth, notices this. If he lets the vomit go, his rival might notice it and get a second wind. So he swallows it and comes out of the changeover walking with an exaggerated sense of well being.
He wins, his rival retires, and this is quick thinking in distress. It’s what the best sport asks: can you, alone, suffer and solve all at once? All of us on the outside are trying to get inside sport. Find someone to take us within the lines and let us taste the constant choices they make, the pain they wear, the instincts they trust.
The astute journalist Prem Panicker says that wrestler Sakshi Malik, with the aid of the excellent Jonathan Selvaraj, does it in her book, Witness (next on my reading list). Eventually competition involves rapid interpretation of a constantly altering puzzle. Roger Federer, in an explanation to comedian and television host Trevor Noah about people he often played against, spoke of “chess" and “patterns".
“It’s very clear what he wants. It’s very clear what I want. The question is, is one of us going to back out of it, or are we just going to say, like, OK, let’s see what you got on the day.
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