You are the best ever. You lost because you were beaten by a better player on that day. That is what happens in sport. It is about today. Your rhythm was thrown off because of any extra day due to the rainout? Your opponent didn’t play the way your two prior opponents played? It was hard to play with the pressure of having to win the Grand Slam? You were tired from so many matches?
Are you Princess who cannot sleep because of a pea under the mattress?
As Roberta Vinci said in her post match interview after beating Serena, I am sorry.
I am sorry Serena but I need to write about you and disappointment I feel.
Before your Wimbledon victory I wrote that I thought that you might consider retiring. I projected that you were playing for the wrong reasons. You looked like you were in emotional pain when playing unless things were going your way. You were put out when your opponents challenged you, almost as if they were unworthy.
I told many that I doubted that you would win the Grand Slam. I projected my own feeling of focusing only on the win, the external one. I believe that the champion champions have a sense of more than just the title and that energy leads to performance that is otherworldly. To be focused only on the titles (and I know in your interviews you said you weren’t and that was a good story you were telling) drains competitive energy. It, in some cases, is able to defeat even the greatest.
There is no doubt in my mind that you are the greatest woman tennis player of the last 50+ years. You are truly a champion in your ability to dominate the sport. You belong in your own category.
But here is my disappointment. I want my heroes to be heroes. I want them to rise above the results that they gather. I want them to be “champion champions.”
You reminded me of Tiger Woods over the last few years. Seemingly unaware of the importance of a mission driven by a purpose greater than the win.
The last four games of the match against Vinci was painful to watch you acting as if she didn’t deserve to be hitting winners and drawing errors from you. You acted like you couldn’t believe that she could keep it together. You acted like a bully who, like many bullies, got scared when the person who was supposed to run away, fights back. She stole your power.
When Vinci kept it together to serve it out, in the greatest moment in her career, a person you have known in tennis for all of your years of playing, you were unable to find it within you to be truly congratulatory. Many times I have seen players who you defeated give you a genuine smile at the net. An appreciation for what you had done. But you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. I get it. You were really disappointed.
And you, in your defeat, could barely acknowledge the New York crowd who had pulled hard for you for two weeks. Barely a nod to the 20,000 who cheered your effort even in defeat. This crowd felt for you.
I thought about Nadal losing to Fognini earlier in the week. A devastating loss. Yet he thanked the crowd, he stopped and signed autographs. A champion champion.
I thought of Federer after losing to Novak in the Wimbledon final this year. Huge personal disappointment. At the presentation ceremony he was smiling. He carried the runner up trophy around Centre Court as a champion champion.
I wonder how you would have been if this were the final? Would you have been a champion champion?
When watching your press interview, I recalled post match press interviews of disappointed favorites who spoke of their opponents’ great efforts against them and how the match they lost was just that. A tennis match they lost. A champion champion’s perspective. You were just put out by questions that needed to be asked of you.
Many athletes say that they don’t need to be role models. They say they only feel responsible to themselves. That is fine. But, in my mind, they will never be a champion champion. Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Roger Clemens, Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods. They acted as if they were special, owing nothing to the world that gave them opportunities of a lifetime.
So now, a better story for you from me, the storyteller: I will study the greats of sports and find those who have risen above their extraordinary results. Those that have been loved for their attitude, not only in victory, but in defeat. I aspire to express to the fans who have helped me live a wonderful life as an athlete my gratitude. I will show appreciation over the next phase of my career. I aspire to be included amongst Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Davenport, Billie Jean, Magic, Peyton, Venus, Spieth, Ali and even Jack Nicklaus who, as fierce as he was, still was congratulatory in defeat. I will rise above my results to reach a level of humanness and become a champion champion.
The next phase of my career will be the one that will be my legacy.