Lessons learnt from Wimbledon 2013

Andy Murray (left), Marion Bartoli

Wimbledon, 2013 was the refresher course we all needed.

Here we were, fed on a steady diet of world domination by a select few, accepting a limited number of patterns and trends as exhaustive, and restricting our focus to a handful of players and issues. Wimbledon this year changed all that.

It made us relook at the fundamentals of why we follow the sport. And in the process, it imparted to us a few key lessons – some fresh ones, and some dredged from the abysses of our memory. So, what did we learn over the course of a captivating fortnight from SW19?

There is more than one formula to achieve success

Coming into the Championships, Marion Bartoli was a freak. She played double-handed on both sides, she had a service action with as much horizontal motion as vertical, she expended too much energy playing shadow-tennis between points, she did not have the necessary champion’s physique.

Yes, she had made it to the Wimbledon final before, but that was just a fluke, it wouldn’t happen again. You could hardly blame the poor girl anyway, with that eccentric, controlling dad-of-a-coach of hers.

But as Bartoli drilled yet another forehand past her hapless opponent on Saturday, all preconceived notions of the ‘right’ way to play were gradually dropping by the wayside.

She remained fiercely focused even as the more ‘conventional’ Lisicki melted under pressure. Here was a tennis player who knew better than most, that what works for one person doesn’t have to work for another.

In an age of tennis academies, defining a uni-dimensional formula for tennis success, Bartoli brought her unique weapons to the contest. In her distinctive style, she hopped, jumped and pumped her way to her maiden Wimbledon title and into the history books.

Perseverance pays

The biggest storyline of the Championships had to be Andy Murray and his maiden Wimbledon title. In the process, he became the first Briton in 77 years to lift the Men’s Singles trophy (how many times did we hear the magic words ‘77’ over the last fortnight?).

Given the home pressure he was constantly under, given that he was facing an in-form World Number 1 in the final, given the weight of history on his back, it was a remarkable effort from the Scotsman. In the end though, perhaps the most surprising thing about Murray’s success was that it didn’t come as a surprise at all.

There was a high degree of justifiable belief this time in Murray’s cause, purely because of the weight of his consistent performances so far.

He had always been on a gradual incline over the years (and still is), adding new facets to his game, working on his fitness, ironing out tactics with Ivan Lendl. His game never suffered any prolonged dips in form, it remained as bull-headed and persistent as the man himself.

Murray’s comfort with his home Grand Slam tournament was evident for quite some time. He made it to the semi-finals at Wimbledon on three consecutive occasions from 2009 to 2011, and went one step further to the final last year.

Murray’s perseverance made his eventual victory seem but a natural culmination of all his efforts over the years. As he kept repeating in post-tournament sound bytes, he had always “tried hard”.

Sabine Lisicki allowed the occasion to get to her in the Ladies’ final

Learn to celebrate the occasion

Sabine Lisicki, she of the million-dollar smile and the explosive game, made a legion of new fans during the course of her Wimbledon fortnight.

But her much-vaunted ‘personality’ brought out both sides of an indispensable tennis truth – the need to embrace the occasion. Lisicki has an enviable 19-5 win-loss record at Wimbledon, with two quarter final, one semi final, and a final appearance this year.

This record seems even more incredible when compared to her results at the other Majors, where she has never gone past the fourth round. She obviously likes her grass. She also effectively uses her past success at Wimbledon to shape her attitude for the matches ahead.

Every interview with Lisicki over the last fortnight involved a few minutes of her gushing over her favourite surface (grass), her favourite court (Centre Court), her favourite crowd (Wimbledon folk), and so on.

And she used this positive attitude best against the big names she came up against. Her scalps at Wimbledon have included the likes of Sharapova, Li Na and of course, most recently, Serena Williams. Essentially, she did a great job of embracing the occasion of Wimbledon to her playing benefit.

On the flip side, Lisicki then proceeded to show us what it meant to succumb to the occasion. In her first ever Grand Slam final, Lisicki allowed the nerves of the big event, along with the cool ferocity of her opponent, to get to her, and halfway through the match, she was reduced to a shaking, sobbing wreck.

What Lisicki showed us consistently through the entire fortnight was the impact that the occasion can have on a player’s game, and the necessity to control it to one’s benefit.

Learn to accept the mortality of heroes

Rafael Nadal left us on the first day of the Championships. If that was not shocking enough, Roger Federer, the king of Wimbledon, bowed out in the second round. Sharapova and Azarenka slip-slided their way out on Wild Wimbledon Wednesday, and by the time Serena Williams was shown the door, we were just numb.

What these losses meant for each player may be unique to each individual context, but the abiding message it told us was one of mortality. There are actually 128 players out there who all begin on a level footing for the ultimate prize. Discount this only at your peril.

The favourites might be in the back pages of their careers, or they might be in the form of their lives. Irrespective of this, there could always be an unexpected failure lurking around the next corner.

This is essentially why we watch sport – because it is not scripted, and therefore, it is unpredictable. In an era of continued domination by a Big 4 on the men’s side, and a more recent Big 3 on the women’s side, it was refreshing (or sobering, depending on the perspective) to see some of them fail for a change.

Sport makes the stars, not the other way around

As the heroes found their feet of clay, a new round of names created a buzz over the fortnight.

Steve Darcis gave us a new definition for Sharks, Sergiy Stakhovsky served-and-volleyed his way to the greatest victory of his career, and Larcher de Britto provided a reason to remember her apart from her decibel levels.

Each of them played out of their skins to beat their much fancied opponents. Each of them also failed to do much else, post that victory. But they exposed us to the possibilities alive in the game. In their brief moments of glory, they showed us that what we actually extol are not sportsmen, but sporting values.

We love Nadal’s grit and determination, but if his opponent displays more of those qualities on a day, we will be equally enthralled by it. If Federer’s opponent makes brilliant use of the same set of tools that the Master had employed so effectively in winning his first few Wimbledon titles, we will not grudge him for that, but laud him instead.

When Sharapova’s ferocious forehand down-the-line shot in a pressure situation is met and directed back with even more venom, we cannot but appreciate the audacity of the opponent’s shot-making.

In the end, we remain captivated, not by sportsmen, but by the sport itself.