Giving Value To Victory

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Shortly after Rafael Nadal's defeat (why does it already seem so long ago?), he waxed philosophic in his overcrowded press conference and gave the tennis world something to chew on, if it would take the time to chew it.

But Roland Garros wore on, the heretofore invincible King of Clay departed, and we watched the rest of the story unfold, Rafa's absence ever-present on our minds.

Now that Roger Federer tops all the chapter headings in the postmortem narrative, many analysts and fans seem to be taking the easy way out. Or, to put it another way, they're being lazy. How can it be that Rafa is so fragile, he can't handle this loss and that's the real reason he won't play Queen's?

This meme is spreading like gossip.

A fan at another forum repeated something he often says about Rafa: the Spaniard never says anything interesting whatsoever. Another fan concurred. Rafa was canned, she said. Nothing there, really. Just a mouthpiece for his wise uncle.

Do we not absorb wisdom from our elders?

Matthew Syed wasn't so lazy. He did his work. No surprise. He is the Sports Journalist of the Year and 2008 Sports Feature Writer of the Year. Syed heard the substance behind Rafa's words and he crafted an elegant essay to expand it. A glimpse:

Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Shakespeare certainly thought so. In the defining soliloquy of Henry IV Part 1, Prince Hal states: “If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; But, when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.” Rafael Nadal had a rare accident on Sunday.

Some will take Nadal's defeat as eloquent testimony to sport's infinite capacity to spring surprises, to keep us guessing, to ravish us with its glorious capriciousness. And there is something in that. But Nadal took a different lesson, a subtler lesson, dare I say it, a more philosophical lesson. In his defeat, Nadal told us that he had glimpsed the meaning of victory.

(...)

“Defeats never make you grow, but you also realise how difficult what I achieved up until today was, and this is something you need sometimes. You need a defeat to give the value to your victories.”

And it was that last sentiment that penetrated the deepest, many discerning something vaguely Kipling-esque in its powerful simplicity. “You need a defeat to give the value to your victories.”

(...)

Defeat is a precious gift to the all-conquering sportsman: an opportunity to learn, to adapt, to develop. But ultimately it is an opportunity to rediscover the essential meaning of victory. That is why Nadal will return stronger, deeper and hungrier.

Nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

Read the rest...

Rafa single-handedly reduced Raja to mere mortal. In a field full of too-tall grass that easily bends down, Rafa was the tree that stood steadfast in the face of the wind that is Raja. Deeply rooted but always stretching toward the sun, no one can tell me this young man has no substance.

His fans need not worry, his detractors need not gloat too hard. His body will be fine. His desire renewed. There's another prize I've no doubt he'd like to conquer. Once Rafa puts his mind to it....

(Thanks, dapxin)