Of winning and losing in sport, you might ask, what has love got to do with these things? The answer is, plenty. But love alone is not enough to get the scoreboard to read the way you might have wanted it to read.
This much was clear in the men’s singles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships on Sunday night (Monday morning in India).
Superb display
And this is precisely why Novak Djokovic’s four-set victory over Roger Federer for his 10th Grand Slam title should be rated as one of the greatest performances in a major final in the new millennium.
For >Djokovic was up against two of the toughest opponents in his sport — the man who is arguably the greatest player of all time, and a raucous crowd that checked in sporting etiquette at the door before settling into the moist seats at the Arthur Ashe stadium for the rain-delayed final.
Watching the match live was enough to give you a clear indication of who the crowd favourite was — something that hardly needs to be confirmed on court time and again when His Royal Highness Roger plays these days.
Yet, it took a second viewing of the match on television, with the result already known, to concentrate on the external elements and > gauge the level of spectator support that Federer enjoyed.
It is doubtful that even he enjoyed it, really. For, love is one thing; unabashed borderline hatred for the opponent of the object of your love is quite another.
Rarely has one player’s errors and shanked shots been cheered with such unholy glee as on Sunday night in New York. Whenever a Djokovic first serve hit the net, the crowd cheered lustily. And when he made unforced errors, the stadium erupted.
On the other hand, each time Federer hit a winner, if you weren’t at the match and were merely hearing the cheers, you might have thought that the Swiss had actually sewn up the match and won the title.
Politically correct At the end of the day, Djokovic said all the politically correct things. He did not want to sound like a curmudgeon.
“I know how that feels, you know, regarding the crowd and support and everything. With that on my mind, I came on the court aware that this is going to be the reality. There is not much I can do about it,’’ said Djokovic.
Over the years, this columnist has seen crowds support one player (or team) or the other to the extreme in many different sports and venues.
>Sachin Tendulkar was loved wherever he played, whether it was in Melbourne or Lord’s or Barbados. This was especially true late in the little maestro’s career — as is the case with Federer — as the fans realised they may not get to see him much longer.
From the days of Frank Worrell, the West Indies teams of different eras had tremendous crowd support away from home, and men such as Garry Sobers and Viv Richards enjoyed the sort of love they might expect at home venues even thousands of miles away from where they were born.
This is also true of some of the great Brazilian sides. For football minus Brazil would be pop music without The Beatles or a Shakespeare collection without Hamlet .
Fans turn up at the grounds or turn on the television not only because they want to see one side win or the other side lose. They do so because they want the winning side to win in style — with ineffable majesty and consummate grace.
Wrote Geoff Dyer in The Colour of Memory : “Anyone who can watch a film of Pele dummying the goalkeeper in the Mexico World Cup or Muhammad Ali beating Foreman in Zaire or see Said Aouita breaking the world record for the 10,000 metres or whatever it was — anyone who can watch those things without tears in their eyes, without being moved in the same way as they are by a work of art is a philistine — there’s no other word for them.’’
Who wants to be seen or known as a sporting philistine? Certainly not Federer’s fans.
All this is understandable. At 34, Federer does not have another 10 years left — although you shouldn’t be surprised if the great man continues to play with as much passion, flair and success over the next couple of years.
Yet, what makes the Federer Brigade stand out from fans in other sports is this: their love for the man is something that goes beyond sport. The fervour borders on the religious.
In the event, this is not merely love; it is worship. Every stadium becomes a Temple of Federer when the Swiss great plays.
And now you will realise the enormity of what >Djokovic achieved in his fourth straight Grand Slam final of 2015. He showed thorough professionalism as he insulated himself from everything that was happening around him to pull off one of the greatest Grand Slam final victories of recent times.