Skip to main content

Rafael Nadal vs Lukas Rosol - Wimbledon 2012


29.7.2012: There is a definite buzz in wimbledon today. There was an upset yesterday, a monumental upset.


 Rafael Nadal - Living Legend.

The name which has come to be associated with grit and determination. A man against whom you had to play inspirational tennis to win a single point; let alone a match. Rafael Nadal plays tennis the way it is meant to be played. There are no freebies on offer. Every ball is chased as if his life depends on it - and then invariably returned. Outrageous angles are created, the existence of which we were never taught in school. And all this, when he is in cruise mode. But every once in a while, comes along a stubborn opponent; an opponent who is willing to fight it out, an opponent who commits the blasphemy of believing he can win, believing that Nadal, Rafael Nadal, can be defeated.

 The response: Nadal digs deep into his inexhaustible reserves, he shifts into top gear. Tennis becomes sublime. Time stands still. Gods wake up from their slumber to witness divinity.  

 Rafael Nadal does not defeat opponents, he decimates them. When the match starts, there are two men on the court. As the match hurtles to its logical conclusion, only one man remains; the other is reduced to a mere shadow, a pale one at that.   


 Lukas Rosol - _______

 Well, who is Lukas Rosol? Ranked 100 in the world, making up the numbers in a grand slam, Lukas Rasol at best was a journeyman. This was his first Wimbledon. In his five earlier attempts, he had not managed to get past the first round of qualifying. His name, from today, will forever be intrinsically linked with Rafael Nadal. At the age of 26, he has lived out his greatest victory, his hour of fame and glory.

After 198 minutes of grueling tennis, Nadal was defeated; vanquished. But what does this match teach us? To me, it makes all his other victories that much more special. It reminds me that in sport, there exsists both victory and defeat and all that separates these two is a line so fine that it is often invisible.

It is days like these that make you realize how insanely amazing these guys really are. 

It is days like these that make you realize that they don't win by default, that they earn every run scored, every wicket taken, every goal, every point, every putt and every basket, that nothing ever comes for comes for free, never ever. That they pay for their seemingly effortless brilliance with years of toil, with sweat and blood.

It is days like these that make you realize that these guys are a tribe of men and women, who though live on the same planet, are a world apart from the rest of us.

It is days like these that makes us realize how very fortunate we are to witness these great men and women in all their pomp and splendor. Thank you.

Rafael Nadal: True Champion!
Lukas Rosol : Bravo!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ascent to Sandakphu

IndiaHikes - Sandakphu Man originated somewhere deep in the jungles of Ethiopia. And then, he walked, and walked, and walked; to become, arguably, the most dominant species in the history of the planet. Walking then, is the most natural thing in the world, and as old as the hills themselves. And yet, today, walking is an archaism. We live in the era of Uber and Amazon, of the remote and the elevator; all designed to not just make walking unnecessary but also unfashionable. Trekking then, inhabits this curious corner of contradiction, natural and unnatural at the very same time. For the first time trekker, this contradiction is all the more magnified; accustomed as he is, to the warm comforts of luxury travel, the lure and excitement of trekking is nonetheless elementary, almost primal even. As the first timer treks, flat terrain is his friend, all so familiar and so very comforting; if at all, monotony is the only damper. The descent is a trickier beast, with dangers potenti...
Post a Comment
Read more

VVS. Laxman - A Tribute

Published on Sportscafe The 8-0 continues to haunt us and i guess it will keep haunting us for some time to come. It is always sad when a sportsman retires. These are people in the prime of their lives suddenly having to give up not only what they are best at but often the only thing they know. “This series was meant to be a fitting final trophy but has ended in tears. An era is over in more ways than one. So after all the misery and rage, Indian cricket fans will perhaps tune in to the Adelaide Test not hoping for a turnaround – the time for that has long passed – but for a final glimpse of their batting heroes. Who knows how many of them will turn up at the next Test?” This was Sambit Bal before the Adelaide Test. How prophetic these words seem now. The 8-0 has claimed two of Indian cricket's biggest stalwarts. To be honest, this was always going to be inevitable. It was always a matter of ‘When’ rather than ‘If’. Hard to blame the selectors or MSD here. Having said...
1 comment
Read more

Book Review: ‘The God Of Small Things’

The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy is a sad book. It is dark, painful and most of all unforgiving. The book is not easy to read. It starts off with torturous verbosity, challenging and at times even antagonizing the reader. This is not a book into which you can ease yourself. This book from the very first page pulls you out of your comfort zone and never lets you go back. The characters rather than being introduced are shoved into you. A Venus Flytrap would have been a more appropriate illustration. The plot revolves around an eventful night when things go wrong; as wrong as they can go. The whole book never allows you to escape from this night; it draws you in, close enough for you to catch glimpses and be mesmerized but just as you are about to make some sense of it, you are yanked away, brutally. This cat and mouse game carries on throughout the book, yo-yoing forth and back, the reader, a mere puppet in the hands of the author. Throughout the book, the reader is...
Post a Comment
Read more