On Tennis

This may be news to some of you, but I have developed quite the armchair interest in tennis over the last few years.  It all started back in Japan in 1999, when televised tennis was one of the few things that I could understand on the box.  This was around the time that the charismatic Williams' sisters were starting to make their mark on the world-stage.  Not only have I followed their story-book careers with interest since then, but have also followed other favourites such as Justine Henin, the 'little Belgian' with an equally intriguing story, who recently retired as World No.1 just before Roland Garros.  I've also been hooked, as has just about everyone else, with the growing Federer v Nadal rivalry, and am wondering if Rafael will cause the ultimate upset at Wimbledon this year.  Last year's final on grass between them was certainly much much closer than the final of the French Open this year.  

There are many things that I enjoy about tennis.  One is the thrill of a very evenly matched high-level contest that goes the distance and could go either way (I'm thinking of Lindsay Davenport v Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2005, or Federer v Nadal at Wimbledon last year, for example).  Another, as I mentioned above, is the story-book histories of some of the highest-ranking players, such as Henin, the Williams' sisters, and the now dominant Serbian trio.  Yet another is the salutary lessons on how much success is ultimately based on discipline, hard work, mental & emotional toughness and desire. Talent gets you so far, I guess, but the other aspects are at least is important, if not more so, when it comes down to it.  In these days of reality TV, where people can get their 15 minutes of fame for singing a song really badly in front of cynical record execs or snogging someone they don't know under a duvet in a day-glo house, it is heartening to see a more traditional approach to success being rewarded.

Which brings me to the actual piece of news that inspired this post.  This year, one of the most exciting things to happen in the tennis world, especially for a New Zealand fan, has been the rise and rise of Marina Erakovic.  She is currently, I think, no 64 in the world. I repeat, in the WORLD.  That is no mean feat for a player from a country that is not a strong tennis-playing country.  She started the year by reaching the semi-final of the ASB Classic in Auckland, and has picked up some ITF titles along the way too.  Her new world ranking qualified her to automatically enter the French Open, during which she advanced to the second round to be knocked out by eventual semi-finalist Jelena Jankovic.  She will also automatically qualify for Wimbledon and has a strong chance, based on her stellar year so far, of being an 11th-hour inclusion to the NZ Olympic team to Beijing.  This week she reached her first WTA Tier III semi-final at the DFS Classic in Birmingham, perhaps her best result to date, and great preparation for Wimbledon.  This is the best result for NZ tennis is YEARS and she is still only 20.  

So what is the point of all this information? Don't worry, I'm on the point of making my increasingly indignant stance clear.  You would think that in a sports-mad country such as this, whose traditional sporting heroes, I might add, have not exactly covered themselves with glory in recent times, that Erakovic might be getting the plaudits she so obviously deserves.  A mere five months since her performance in Auckland she is no 64 in the world, playing and holding her own with the big names, and doing well in tournaments and Grand Slams, but how is this reported in that shameful rag, the NZ Herald?  Looking for her result in the Birmingham semi-final against one of the Bondarenko sisters, I had to use the search function to find the belitting item, 'Erakovic fails to reach final'. OK that's technically correct, but it could have put a more positive spin on it.  And the negative cast of the headline continued throughout the article, which contained the comment, ' It is Erakovic's third loss in a WTA semi-final'. Again, technically true, but another more positive way to put it, especially given all the information set out above, is 'Erakovic has reached three WTA semi-finals in a break-through year for her.  However, despite her winning run, she couldn't get past Bondarenko'. Or similar.   This immature and cultural cringe-worthy reportage (which, by the way, is of a piece with the treatment Tim Henman, and now Andy Murray, regularly got from the British media) spectacularly fails to acknowledge the tremendous effort and work that must have gone in for Erakovic to get this apparently 'crappy' result.  It's as if because NZ occasionally manages to beat everyone else at rugby that we routinely expect the same of all our sports-people and, frankly, that's just not realistic and shows a stunning lack of support for the results they do achieve.  I'm not writing this to say that her current results are the best Erakovic can ever hope to get.  She clearly has reasonable targets ahead for herself, such as breaking into the Top 50 this year, and wants to progress as far as she can.  But it's like nothing less than her occupying the no 1 spot will satisfy NZers and that is a very very poor show of the kind of support that we give people who give their all to bring us their reflected glory.  The moral of this story then is: recognise the work and effort that it takes to go so far and support the people who are doing well and, even when they fall, support them even then because that's when they need it the most!!! It's not exactly rocket-science...

There. I feel a bit better now having got that off my chest.