Spinoff by Soumya Bhattacharya: There’s no better time to be a sports fan
Football, tennis and cricket are all illuminated by the talents and collective greatness of athletes who count as among the best ever to have played their chosen sports.
As Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal meet for the eighth time in the final of a Grand Slam tournament today, it makes sense to ask: could there be a better time than now to be a sports fan? Football, tennis and cricket, the three sports that I follow, are all illuminated — and have been for some years now — by the talents and collective greatness of athletes who count as among the best ever to have played their chosen sports. We fans should cherish it while it lasts.
In football, we have the duopoly of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Between them, they have scored 1316 goals (Ronaldo has 674, Messi 642) for club and country. Between them, they shared the Ballon D’Or, football’s biggest individual prize, for more than a decade. Their performances have defined their club teams, their countries, the leagues in which they have played, and the very notion of contemporary football. The debate rages on about who is the greater player. Both have their hats in the ring for the greatest player of all time. Regardless of which side of the debate one might be, or, indeed, if one is a neutral in the matter, it has been a blessing to be able to watch both perform with such virtuosity simultaneously. The game is better off for it. So are its fans.
In cricket, we have three batsmen, all masters of the modern era, all in the reckoning for places in the pantheon of the game’s all time greats. We have our own Virat Kohli, Steve Smith from Australia and Kane Williamson from New Zealand. (In my estimation, England’s Joe Root yaps at the heels of this triumvirate.) Kohli has 6613 Test runs at an average of 53.76; Smith, nearing the end of his one-year suspension for ball tampering, has 6199 runs at an average of 61.37; and Williamson has 5865 runs at an average of 51.44. Between them, the three men have scored 67 Test hundreds. In one day internationals, Kohli, with 39 centuries, a strike rate of 92.73 and an average of 59.68, leads the pack by some distance, but the other two are no slouches. Like Ronaldo and Messi, they dictate and define the fortunes of the teams they play for. They offer the template for modern batsmanship. And they are nowhere close to being done. They will, if anything, get even better.
In tennis, we have Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. All three are among the greatest to have ever played the game; one among them, Federer, is a bona fide candidate for the title of Greatest of All Time. The trio has dominated men’s tennis for more than a decade now. Their collective brilliance has not allowed a challenger from the next generation to break out. The careers of all three have been beset with injuries. But they have held on, fought back, and continued to remain at the pinnacle of their sport.
Between them, the three have won 51 Grand Slam tournaments (Federer has won 20 majors; Nadal 17; and Djokovic 14). They ended 2018 with Djokovic ranked Number 1, Nadal Number 2 and Federer Number 3. In 2018, they shared the year’s four majors between them. Djokovic won Wimbledon and the US Open; Nadal the French Open; and Federer the Australian Open. Each of the three was Number 1 at some point of time or the other in 2018.
But there is something in this keen rivalry that sets it apart from the ones in contemporary cricket and football; sets it apart, in fact, from any similar intense rivalry in sport. Between Ronaldo and Messi, as between Kohli and Smith, there is a fair bit of needle. It sometimes becomes apparent when the players go head to head. It is not always pretty.
There exists not an iota of that feeling among modern tennis’s three greatest champions. A great deal of mutual respect underpins their relationship. Federer and Nadal, in particular, not merely respect and admire each other; they seem to be fond of each other. Their tributes to each other are genuine.
After beating Nadal in an epic final at the 2018 Australian Open, Federer said: “Tennis is a tough sport, there are no draws but if there was going to be one I would have been very happy to accept a draw tonight and share it with Rafa…. Stay on the tour, keep playing Rafa, please, tennis needs you, so thanks very much for everything you do.”
Months later, accepting his prizes at the Laureus 2018 World Sports Awards, Federer again drew attention to his great friend and rival. “Thank you to my rival Rafa,” he said. “I wanted to give a shoutout to him. He had an unbelievable year himself. We had a great battle and it’s because of a guy like him, I think I’m a better player. He could very well be here tonight standing here with this award because he’s an incredible player, incredible friend and incredible athlete.”
Grace, warmth and affection limn the on-court competitiveness between two of tennis’s all time greats. That is what makes their rivalry so unique, so exemplary. If only more sporting rivalries were like this.
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