Sharada Iyer — Tennis With An Accent
After her first-round exit at Wimbledon on its opening day against Elina Svitolina, Venus Williams exited Centre Court in pain and anguish. The result itself and the events that led up to it gave way to the oft-discussed topic of her retirement. Yet, the subject of the discussion herself, Venus Williams, who left the court just as gracefully as she entered it before the match, didn’t have much to say about retirement.
Rather, Williams spoke about the ethos of smiling and displaying sportsmanship after a defeat.
In a lengthy post on Instagram, the 43-year-old wrote, “I’m not sure how I managed to smile in this moment but I don’t remember my face looking like this… I felt just the opposite… I am happy I can look back at this moment and see I smiled. I felt like crying. But as an fyi I didn’t cry. I don’t have time for crying when I’m trying to get to the next level… I believe in less time crying and more time working… I also believe in being a good sport. You win and lose in life. You can’t cry when you are losing. You have to get to learning. It’s a bad sport if you can’t at least try to be a good sportsperson in the moment of defeat and allow your opponent to enjoy their moment of victory… until your moment comes.”
The last sentence in Williams’ post does seem to address – albeit indirectly – her retirement. The broader gist of Williams’ statement offers a life lesson. Actually, two.
The first: Williams’ words are an example of practicing what she preaches.
In a career that’s nearing the end of its third decade, it’s obvious Williams will have had more than a few cursory losses along the way. To quote actual statistics, of the 1,082 matches Williams has played in her career right up to The Championships this year, she lost 281 times. This year alone, of the six matches she played, Williams lost four. Coupled with the injuries and illnesses she’s had over the years, including the ones she picked up this year, Williams’ ability to keep being brave – by just smiling – is acknowledgement that one shouldn’t depend on results to keep on smiling. Just as one ought not consider the losses themselves as definite, as though encountering one means the end of the world and all the happiness contained within it.
The second food-for-thought item to be gleaned from Williams’ remarks is that a result doesn’t determine the choices one makes. To be succinct, a result doesn’t give anyone a reason to treat others poorly.
That Williams was able to acknowledge that her opponent won both on and off-court and be respectful to her is testimony to the values she has consistently brought to the fore as a competitor. Most importantly, it’s substantiation of the longevity of her professionalism. For someone who has won 801 matches in a career across 29 years of professional tennis, it would have been quite easy for the seven-time major champion to not demonstrate sportsmanship as if to prove a point about her stature in the sport. But if she were to have done so, it would have been an insult not just to her opponents but also to the sport and herself. As someone whose commitment to tennis is as unquestionable as it has been steady, such behaviour would have been abhorrent for Williams.
Come to think of it, beyond tennis itself, Williams’ words emphasise that at the core of one’s attitude and comportment is the respect and awareness one carries in good times and bad. Between one Monday and the other, as tennis tournaments give way to another, there will be an ample number of eventualities scattered across our lives. On and on it goes every week, building into months and years and the whole of life. What’s important is to keep moving on without losing ourselves or our self-respect in the process.
Tennis with an Accent 