The Most Beautiful Sport There Is
Before the start of the U.S. Open a few weeks from now, I’m reposting an old article here.
Photo credit: Antoine Couvercelle/DPPI/Icon SMI
The late great American writer David Foster Wallace, who wrote the essay “Federer as Religious Experence,” in the The New York Times had a deep appreciation for tennis, having played competitive junior tennis in his youth. He also wrote the essay “The String Theory” for Esquire magazine in 1996, at the height of the Agassi-Sampras era.
Tennis is a beautiful sport. And not because it is glamorous nor because it is becoming such a platform for fashion that players even don chrome accessories while playing. The most ardent followers of the game would agree that it is the most beautiful sport there is. Mr. Wallace said as such, and although he also maintained that “Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, he also said that “serious tennis is a kind of art.” And I agree. I cannot put into words the marvel and appreciation I have for tennis as eloquently as Mr. Wallace had written his own; I cannot explain why the popping sound created by a clean strike of the racket strings to a fuzzy yellow ball is like music to my ears, or why watching Roger Federer’s footwork gives me as much delight as watching an entire ballet troupe, but I can tell you that I will never love another sport as much as I love tennis. Take that from an avid badminton player. Take that with a grain of salt and indifference.
It makes me sad that I cannot play the game. But access to watching professional tennis takes away whatever resentment I have. I cannot begin to imagine the kind of dedication and single-mindedness the top-level players have in trying to perfect their craft. I can only gape in front of the TV screen or my computer monitor whenever I see an almost impossible shot or angle, or whenever I realize that these people spend the majority of their time (in truth, the whole of their present lives) training hard to eliminate in their system the one thing that every one of us would like to avoid, no matter what your profession is - committing errors, unforced or otherwise.
Maybe it’s indeed the athletic artistry that compels me to watch tennis as avidly as another would watch a soap opera. Or maybe it’s what Andre Agassi said – that “there are just so many parallels between tennis and life.” At the end of the day, it’s still just a game. But what a beautiful game this one is.