The Champion, the Hunted. Food for thought.

They exclaimed, “He is finished!”

They jeered, “He can never do it. Ever!”

They began writing his sporting obituary.

Each time his doubters had something to throw at him, he remained unfazed and inimitably so. He wasn’t playing for them. Why would he? It wasn’t the prospect of gaining a permanent residence‐ship at the Valhalla of Immortals, either. There was only one person he was responsible to – his own self. He may not have been considered as the present day number one, yet he was hunted. All because he seemed to fail in front our eyes. Damn the surreal expectations of us mere mortals! Statistics have a story to say, too. And so it was to be – the die had been cast; the bar, raised.

In sport, there is a “number one” and then there is everyone else. Any individual who has occupied the numero uno slot for a long time running will find it rather unfamiliar when he is deposed and relegated to being part of “the rest”. To scale a peak is one thing, but to scale, reside and rule for years together is quite another.

Agreed ‐ by law ‐ that the hunter is often better positioned than the hunted. But sport is a different habitat altogether. Being hunted year‐in, year‐out and yet never stepping off the pedestal creates a divine aura. One that shields you from the brouhaha of vagrant onlookers. It is when you are back as the hunter that you try and grope for all the faculty that had propelled you to become the hunted in the first place! Weird. Period.

Weathering a storm is quite an arduous task but repeatedly thwarting tireless attacks from the nether hordes? All that, evidently so, differentiates a contender from a pretender. The certified master and a redoubtable, but greenhorn apprentice.

Coming back to the man of our moment – he reminds us how a true champion should be. The quintessential embodiment of talent sublime, grace non‐pareil, humility profound and probably a faint streak of arrogance – to put the opposition in their place. He may be Master to many an aspiring apprentice, but he is forever an ardent student of the game who cherishes every moment of battle. One who understands that possessing a supposedly complete repertoire is equivalent to owning a drop that makes the mighty ocean. After all, it was Sir Isaac Newton himself who spake thus – “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

No one would sound even remotely unctuous when either of the names “Roger Federer” or “Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar” pop‐up to fit, nay, complete that earlier statement.

The dazzling panoply of a rivalry

The easel was set-up. With a colourful palette, a ready brush, a myriad ideas and a plethora of strokes in his repertoire, the artist was ready. Movements so elegant, so graceful, so profound and ever so sublime would have the audience spell-bound and rapt at attention. There was a surreal touch to his work. Oh the finesse of it all! His actions were exquisite and par excellence. More often than not, the way he would go about his job would be lucid and ethereal… For, his competitors would be left far behind gaping, seemingly tactless and wondering what had just hit them. Such was his dominance when he and his challengers took stage.

All but one. It is known that Mother Nature has her own unique way to deal with dominance. And so, it seemed only too fair that such great a talent should be bogey to someone. Enter the warrior. One who was not to be intimidated by any show of invincibility or ‘Godliness’. One who gnawed at the artists back. One who more than just troubled poetic pulchritude with a polar brilliance- puissance. Reminiscent of the tireless Heracles himself, this raging and rampant marauder was no cheap mercenary or bounty hunter. He was on a mission, too.

And what happens when irresistible force meets immovable object? A spectacle for us mere mortals to behold in awe. A wonder… A phenomenon that has to be seen to be believed. For, one of the said mighty has to fall, albeit momentarily, in an exhibition of contrasting art- however unique their ways may seem. The enchantment that holds those who witness the contest is worth every moment. These novae tend to illuminate the grandest of stages ad infinitum. The legacy left behind becomes the talk of raconteurs for generations till another equally (if not better) august exhibition of talent comes to the fore. And such narrations of prowess and fortitude are never ad nauseam!

It is a funny issue, the one we call a ‘paradox’. How beauty and monstrosity can charm the beholder in their own subtle ways. No wonder the captivation factor reaches its zenith when such wizards cross each other’s path in their quest for immortality. For, they are the exultant ones of the highest order… The elite Excellencies of execution… They reach heights which plebs and puerile characters can only dream of. Their mastery of the light and dark arts is put to a litmus test.

Spirit, they say, is indomitable, unending and unyielding. Indeed… The spirit of competition is ever-lasting and even vengeful! In a work of note- Ode on a Grecian Urn - the inimitable John Keats expressed how the seen are ephemeral and how the unseen are eternal… When Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal contest one another, Father Time may seem to have a sepulchral aura about Him and willingly takes the back seat to revel in a feast not for the eyes alone, but for Time immemorial. Moments, ephemeral and eternal, unite…

'That' Unforgettable Sunday

Great players - and Roger Federer is unarguably that - are best judged by whom they have to fight for major titles. Federer might have won more grand slam titles if a certain Rafael Nadal did not exist - and he would almost certainly be a French Open champion by now after making the final three years in succession - but he would probably not be quite as good a tennis player. Nadal has made Federer a better player and vice-versa.

Roger Federer does not own the Centre Court of SW19. Nobody does, nobody ever has. The most singular arena in sport does not go in for being owned, rather it will lend itself on a complex lease-hire system and is always ready to foreclose at the cruellest and least convenient moment. The court will let people have a taste of ownership, but then it will kick them out on to the street without a moment of remorse. It is an arena that dotes on its favourites and is generous and sporting to everybody else, but it is also the cruellest arena in sport. Those whom the place loves best end up suffering the most.

Which man has ever had a better right to call himself owner of Centre Court than Bjorn Borg? He won 41 successive matches at Wimbledon, the bulk of them on Centre. But in the end, when love was at its highest, the supreme court turned against him. Not the people, only the place itself, allowing a foul-mouthed interloper called John McEnroe to beat him. The one thing you can never do with Centre Court is to take it for granted.

Home matters. It is an atavistic thing. Everything to do with territory is about breeding and feeding. And it is a fact throughout nature that the holder of the territory has a considerable advantage over the invader, not only because he knows the place but also because being at home gives him strength. There is a species of fish for whom the mere fact of being at home makes it the certain winner of every fight over every invader. Other species are less clear-cut and I suspect that tennis players are among them. But Federer has as much claim to ownership of this court as Borg. The question remaining is whether or not he can take the step that was beyond Borg.

Sports psychologists make a big thing of the idea of making friends with the place of competition. They tell you to get the arena on your side. You will see competitors in all sports walking aimlessly about, idly playing with a ball, or just sitting about. Some do mental exercises, visualising themselves winning, others just absorb the vibes, telling themselves that they like the place, that the place likes them. Everybody just wants to feel at home - that's the crucial thing.

But Centre Court is always capricious. Sometimes it seems not so much like a court as a courtesan - beautiful, generous, but always capable of withdrawing her favours for no apparent reason, just because she happens to feel like it, or more usually, because she has a thing for a younger man.

The wresting of Centre Court from Borg was the biggest happening in men's tennis in the Open era. Now, more than a quarter of a century later, we have another great champion fighting to keep his ownership of the greatest arena in sport. It is Federer's place and so Federer has the edge, at least to start with. But you presume on Centre Court at your peril. In the end, it always eats the ones it loves the best.

It’s hard to play Rafael Nadal. It’s also hard to play Bjorn Borg at his peak, when the old warrior was making his myths with his wooden excalibur. Hard to play either of them, close to impossible to play them both at the same time, and yet that’s what Roger Federer was forced to do on D-day. And in the end, it was too much for him.

It was Nadal’s day, or rather, Nadal’s night; an epic of shifting fortunes and alternating advantage, a match that came down, in the end, to a question of will. And Nadal was the stronger, if not by much. The champion who has everything was edged out by the challenger who did not know his place, who simply would not stop challenging.

Nadal was playing with the forces of youth and change and revolution to power him on. Borg, his ally, was admittedly doing little more than watching, but he was still playing with the forces of history and the unchangeable facts of the past. It was a devastating combination and Federer, as keenly aware of the pressure of his younger rival as he is of the weight of history, was almost torn in half.

Nadal loves to put pressure on his opponent, with his miraculous movement and his ability to reach impossible balls time after time. He doesn’t just put them back in play, either: he hits deep, testing and accurate shots from impossible places. As for Borg, he won five Wimbledons on the trot and the thought of beating this record had eaten far too deep into Federer’s cool.

Half the people have been saying that Federer has been struggling all year and will struggle at Wimbledon; the other half have been saying Federer will find the old magic at Wimbledon because he’s one of the greatest players to step on Centre Court. Yesterday’s final proved beyond question that both sides were right, but the first half were righter.

Federer had won five Wimbledons on the trot, and that’s why he stumbled at the sixth. His comeback from humiliation was as great a miracle as any he has achieved in his charmed tennis life, but it was Nadal’s day. Federer played poorly to begin with and looked ill at ease, less than the serene self we know. But, oddly, this does not inhibit him. He came back with a series of remarkable points to hold serve and then came the black clouds and the rain that might have been a part of Federer’s usual Wimbledon luck. He took a break, had a bit of a think and hoped the delay might put a tiny bit of a kink in Nadal’s rhythm. He came out a man renewed.

Federer had been uncharacteristically error-prone in the first session and Nadal had been eating his loose shots in a feeding frenzy, rattling up a two-sets-to-love lead. But after the rain, he staged one of the great Centre Court fightbacks. First one set was grappled back and then in the fourth, Nadal had two separate championship points. But in an uncannily brilliant passage of play, Nadal played superbly while Federer rose a notch higher.

It might have been a humiliation. He waited until he was two sets and love-40 down before he really got into the match, which might be seen as leaving it a little late. The problem with all players who have touched greatness is that they don’t accept reality very easily, not when that reality involves defeat. He did not go easily, and not without touching the miraculous. But in the end, he went.

Rare, rare times: when two great players both play their best at the same time. At this ineffable level of sport, it’s time to pack away the superlatives and just give thanks for bloody sport; for these daft games we watch that produce such extraordinary things and bring us such extraordinary people.

Team India!

Square one again...

Here we are, at home and in bewilderment as to why this is happening to our beloved Men in Blue... They were already more than just "blue" at the end of a cataclysmic Carribean expedition.

The BCCI is currently on the look out for its lost nose, which was first chopped off by Graham Ford and then kicked out of sight by John Embury. Now they have sufficient time to get themselves a nose before proceeding with the selection process. The time has come in the form of old Chandu. A scapegoat aged 72 who does not believe in the "generation gap" stuff. Ah, one sure can't teach this old dog new tricks- be them LOIs or T20Is.

BCCI is in a lovely soup. They knocked Dav Whatmore out from the contenders race and gloated over having short-listed a 'low profile' coach. After scratching their heads, an ingenious solution came out in the form of Chandu Borde. Now to see if things really click. It won't be too long before we see another terrible spate in terms of performance which willl lead to more head sratching. Lately, there have been comments like, the Indians do not need a coach- Whoa, are we seeing a bunch of Roger Federers out there?? Oh please... That would be the last thing [un]imagineable!

And it's high time people like Bishen Singh Bedi start taking "action" rather than squatting and saying what he likes and does not like. I am not surprised that people like Sunil Gavaskar are maintaining low key profiles now. He has never played for the country- so he will do little as coach. God save...

Ad majorem "Team India" gloriam.