In all likelihood, the players of the pre-Open era faced none of this and, as a result, lived more peaceful, mundane lives than their counterparts do today. In that bygone era, sport was not a means to earn a living; instead, it existed purely as recreation for society's discerning upper crust. The strait-laced conventions of that tennis were deliberately implemented in order to keep the true nature of the game under wraps, lest it should send society's carefully crafted, genteel world careening into chaos.
Tennis became honest with the emergence of pugnacious characters like Ilie Nastase, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe. During the Open era, they stripped tennis of its demure façade, exposing it in all its bloody glory, and the tennis world cringed with shame. This new society of players saw and loved tennis for what it really is: a quest for perfection, a battle for dominance, an opportunity to push their bodies to the limit.. and damn good fun.
There is nothing gentlemanly at the core of tennis. All sports reward effort and punish sloth; all sports are gory. Tennis, however, may be the most gruesome of them all. Out on the court, a player is utterly alone with nothing but time between himself and the ball.
The painted rectangle in which a player stands is his personal Room 101, where what he fears the most may be what he least expects; the player's opponent is a heartless Nazi, a well-oiled machine; the deceptively innocent ball reveals itself to be a traitor, able to betray him at any moment should he display signs of weakness. One double fault can sink the nail into any player's coffin.
These days, the gentlemen in the game are silent assassins like Roger Federer and Tim Henman, who smile politely as they inch a knife into their opponent's back. There also exists a different breed of killer that prefers to stab a player in the front while jeering in his face. Two excellent examples of this type of player are Rafael Nadal and Lleyton Hewitt. Both of these characters are gladiators, ready to tear each other, and anyone who oppses them, apart for glory.
The type we, the spectators in the arena, favour can be sorted according to weapon preference: bow and arrow or broadsword? The subtle poison of a drop volley or brutal ball-bashing from the baseline? Some players like to add a dash of verbal arsenic into the mix, just to add spice. Anything to remain the last man standing, for that, in a nutshell, is the essence of tennis.
--M.
