Sports are the easiest form of storytelling available to
humans. While any story teller can
easily fail to craft a compelling plotline, all that sports has to do is gather
a bunch of competitive people together and tell them that only one can have the
big, shiny trophy in the room.
Boom. Compelling human drama
literally writes itself before our eyes.
What's
really most amazing about this process is how easily the sports we watch seem
to neatly fall into logical storylines complete with conflict, tension, and
even themes. They say the best stories
always end with what seems, in retrospect, the only fitting way to end. Despite the variable outcomes, sports seem to
do this too. The only element affected
by the outcome is the ending's tenor: Is it a happy or sad ending?
Of
course, a lot of this is just a result of compulsive human need to organize the
world, our minds imposing order onto the chaos in front of us. But sometimes the set up just seems too
perfect. Take this past semi final round
at the Men's Singles at Wimbledon. On
one end, six time major winner Novak Djokovic faced 23 year old wunderkind
Grigor Dimitrov. On the other, 17 time
champ Roger Federer faced 23 year old giant Milos Raonic. Old guard vs. new. The potential passing of the torch. One of the oldest stories in the book. Does youth trump experience?
The
answer is no. Resoundingly no. Not in men's tennis anyway. Djokovic had to work for his win, but he got
it after four tough sets against Dimitrov.
Federer was never in any such trouble, taking Raonic down on cruise
control in straight sets. Nothing wrong
with that story, except that we've seen it before. A lot.
Last year's Wimbledon was dubbed the tournament of the upset. Federer and contemporary Rafael Nadal fell in
the first two rounds and an unknown youngster (Jerzy Janowicz) and an
occasionally brilliant but unproven competitor(Juan Martin Del Potro) reached
the semis to square off against the established Andy Murray and Djokovic. Both lost, and after all those upsets the
final was still contested between two of the top seeds. Within a few years, no one will remember it
as the tournament of upsets.
Last
year's US Open progressed in much the same manner. The semi finals saw Djokovic and Nadal face
normal major non contenders in Stanislas Wawrinka and Richard Gasquet. They lose.
Djokovic-Nadal final. This is not
to call such tournaments totally anticlimactic.
There remain many compelling storylines in the star studded finals, from
Murray ending the decades long wait for a British men's champion at Wimbledon
to Federer attempting to prove that he is still relevant to tennis in his old
age. But these narratives are all in
service to the greater narrative of men's tennis over the last ten years: No
one is winning outside of about four guys.
That narrative is persistent, and many fans are ready if not desperate
for a slight diversion.
That's
probably why we latch on to the storylines like the one we saw at Wimbledon this
week. But stories don't always end the way we want them to. That's the mark of a classic tragedy: we see
exactly where the story is going, and are still pretty sad when it comes
around. The semi final and final results
at Wimbledon, were exciting for certain, but also predictable. For as much as we value those neat and
meaningful storylines which surround our sports, it is the unpredictable that
gets our blood pumping at the end. Hence
why the final between Djokovic and Federer was such a treat. Too bad we can't say the same about those
semi final clashes. We'll have to wait
at least until August to see if the story of the young guns finally comes to
the forefront of men's tennis.
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