Last weekend concluded the two-week Grand Slam tennis event of the Australian Open in Melbourne. It concluded with surprising endings that made me proud of the sport I love.
I love watching tennis from Australia every January because, as we know, it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere and I clamor for warm weathee. It’s no secret, this guy hates winter.
The second reason why I love the Australian Open is my love for the game of tennis. I’ve played tennis, I’ve coached and taught tennis, my two daughters were accomplished tennis players and I’ve worked at a professional tennis tournament in Charleston for several years.
I can’t tell you how many pro matches I’ve attended in my lifetime, but it’s too many to count. The investment is also something I could never estimate between my tennis and my girla’ tennis. I’m sure it’s astronomical.
This year’s Australian Open was a great event with a storybook ending.
When I was playing in my early days of tennis, it wasn’t uncommon for players to turn pro at the ages of 14 and 15 and retire between 25 and 30 years old. Having a long career wasn’t the norm. You were considered over the hill at 26 or 27 and were a dinosaur if you played to 30.
We’ve seen a surge in the last few years of pros playing into their early, and even late, 30s. It’s refreshing to see it is possible to be at the top of your game in your mid-30s.
This year, Serena Williams, 35, won her 23rd Grand Slam title, the most ever in the modern age. She beat her older sister, Venus, 37.
Roger Federer, 35, of Switzerland, whom many consider the greatest male tennis player of all time, took on his rival, Rafael Nadal, 30, of Spain, for his 18th Grand Slam title, the most ever for a male in tennis history.
The American twin brothers, Mike and Bob Bryan, 38, lost in the men’s doubles finals but are the most successful doubles team in tennis history.
In the women’s doubles championship, 31-year old, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, an American, along with her Czech Republic partner, Lucie Safarova, 29, took the title for the second time. Bethanie is someone I’ve gotten to know of the last few years along with her husband Justin, and I couldn’t have been happier for her. She struggled with injury after injury late in her career, but she’s been getting stronger and it’s paying off.
What I really like about professional tennis is that it is truly an international sport.
Many sports have international athletes, but only in a few sports do international teams play against other nations. Oh, yes, we have the Olympics, but they are every four years. Same for the America’s Cup yacht racing where there might be international teams, but they race every few years.
Week in and week out, tennis players from all over the world enter tournaments played on just about every continent. The official language of professional tennis is English. It always astounded me how well foreigners speak English while many players are multi-lingual.
The diplomacy in tennis is extraordinary. If the world could take a chapter from professional tennis, we’d have a safer world. With hundreds of professionals on each tour, men’s and women’s, getting along each week, each year without incident is remarkable.
More times than not, doubles teams are made up of players from two different nations.
The only caveat was in 2009-2010 when Shahar Pe’er of Israel wanted to play a pro event in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and was not granted a visa by the UAE government because it did not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Fellow pro players called it an outrage, the Tennis Channel refused to broadcast the event and the number one draw, Andy Roddick, withdrew from the tournament and the possibility of losing out on a $2 million purse.
Pe’er was granted a visa with restrictions the following year. Can you imagine the pressure this kid had on her to play in a country hostile to her own? Venus Williams called Shahar courageous and congratulated her.
That wasn’t the only political barrier Pe’er broke. In 2007, Pe’er, a Jew, and Sania Mirza, a Muslim, teamed up to play women’s doubles at Wimbledon. The two were former partners but disbanded due to political pressure before reforming in 2007. They are actually best friends to this day.
At the conclusion of this year’s Australian Open, winner Federer was so gracious in his post-match speech, he said if he could end the match in a tie, he would have been happy to share it with Nadal.
It just goes to show you that, under different flags, different religions, or different politics, we are all the same.
Quote of the week
“To grow mature is to separate more distinctly, to connect more closely.” – Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian poet.
Thought of the week
“Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life?” – Havelock Ellis, British psychologist.
Bumper sticker
“Men are governed by lines of intellect – women, by curves of emotion.” – James Joyce, Irish novelist.
