This is the frozen season in the Northeast, when the ever-present cold air in your face and gray slush below your feet begin to wear down even your most cheerful attempts to ignore them. I keep hearing the same phrase, whether it’s from people talking to me, or people I don’t know talking to someone else as I pass them on the street: “I’ve had it with winter.” The sentiment is mutual.
The athletes we’ve watched this week, Tiger Woods excepted, have done their best to bring some warmth to us through the TV set. Shahar Peer’s run in Dubai, which ended today at the powerful hands of Venus Williams, was historic and courageous. But it was also harsh and a little sad. Rather than getting to exhibit their skills inside the main arena, Williams and Peer looked they were playing in a cage on Court 2. Still, Peer’s ability to keep her spunky toughness tightly focused throughout the event was inspiring.
More joyful, though, has been the experience of watching the U.S. Olympians win gold each night. Lindsay Vonn in tears, unable to think of a word better than “awesome.” Eric Lysacek punching the air after nailing his long program. Shaun White hugging his bronze-medal-winning teammate under the lights. Before this week, I’d thought of snowboarding as nothing much more than a stoner’s diversion. Then I saw White’s first trick on Wednesday, where he floated about 50 feet in the air, a good 10 feet higher than anyone else, and thought, “Oh, so that’s why he’s famous.” That and the fact that, unlike his teammates, White didn’t wear his jeans down around his knees. I can see him teaching the sport someday to little redheaded Shaun-White-wannabees: “First lesson of the half-pipe, kids: pull your pants up.”
As every photographer and TV cameraman knows, we remember the victory celebration as much as we do any individual moment from the competition itself—the emotion is what sticks to us. Nowhere is that more true than in tennis. Look at the Getty Images website after a Grand Slam final and you’ll see that half of the photos were taken in the five-second period immediately following the last point.
Popular culture has become much more blatantly and unapologetically emotive over the years—witness American Idol for starters. At the end of the NBA championships, the winners used to run straight off the court and into the locker room. Two years ago, the Boston Celtics stood on the floor and bellowed obnoxiously for what seemed like hours. Their star forward, Paul Pierce, was still crying when the next season began. Tennis, in a more genteel way, has followed the trend. When the American champs of the 40s and the Aussies of the 50s and 60s won a big title, they typically didn’t do much more than raise their hand or fling their racquet upward as they ran to the net for a quick, respectful pump of the hands with their opponents.
In the 70s, Jimmy Connors jumped the net, but, as in so many other aspects of the game, it was Bjorn Borg who set the standard when it came to celebrating Slam wins. From what I can tell, he first fell to the court in prayerful euphoria at Wimbledon in 1978. But the drop we all remember came on Centre Court two years later, when he leaned back and soaked up a planet’s worth of energy after beating John McEnroe in five sets in the final.
What are the other great celebrations in tennis? Let’s take a look at five that are available on YouTube—you really need to see these, not just read about them. Maybe they’ll make us forget the frozen season outside.
This is from Pat Cash’s 1987 Wimbledon win over Ivan Lendl. It’s hard to believe now, but it was the first time a champion had walked into the stands on Centre Court to celebrate with his family. We know this because we can hear the immortally bewildered words of British commentator John Barrett: “And Pat . . . well, I don’t know where he’s going.”
The old Aussies had been classic gentlemen on the court. It took a new, post-McEnroe-era Aussie to blow past the decorous royal traditions of the Wimbledon trophy ceremony and take the celebration right to the people who had helped him get there. Cash didn’t follow a tradition; he started one.
Here we have a few clips from the latter stages of Chris Evert’s 1985 French Open victory over rival and friend Martina Navratilova. It had been a long time coming for Evert, who had been on the losing end of their contests for about four solid years. But while it was Evert who won the match, I like this celebration because of Martina’s reaction. After Chris passes her, it’s Navratilova who crosses the net and gives the winner a congratulatory hug. It echoed a reaction from seven years earlier, when Evert, then the No. 1 player in the world and in their rivalry, had patted Navratilova's head and thrown her arm around her after the Czech had upset her for her first Wimbledon title. On both occasions, it felt like a win for both players.
Once again, it’s Borg and McEnroe at Wimbledon. In this clip, you don’t get much more than the rapturous pose you know so well—Borg sitting on the grass is an iconic representation of triumph, and needs no words. But what’s interesting is that the Swede, who had just spent four or so hours without showing a flicker of emotion, would stand up a couple seconds later, and, with his face wiped clean of expression again, calmly shake hands with McEnroe at the net, sit down on his sideline chair, look into the camera with just the hint of a smile, and murmur the Swedish word for “Incredible.” That was it. It was almost as if the man who bottled everything up would have chosen not to drop to his knees if he could have helped it. But he couldn’t help it. More than any other tennis celebration, Borg’s at Wimbledon in 1980 was a release. What makes it epic is the mix of involuntary emotion and graceful control.
Twenty-eight years later, we’re in the same spot, in overtime in the fifth set on Centre Court, with the No. 1 and 2 players levitating each other into history. This time the last point ends with an error, from Roger Federer. But the reaction of the winner, Rafael Nadal, is the same as Borg’s—total release. Where Borg kept come control over his body, Nadal can’t help but wipe himself out. Rather than falling to the ground, his legs seem to lead the way and come out from under him. He ends up looking like he's been shot on a battlefield, which couldn’t have been more appropriate to the player or the moment. Unlike Borg, Nadal, liberated by Pat Cash 21 years earlier, shares the moment with whomever he can, including Federer’s agent, Tony Godsick, and some lucky Spanish royalty. What sets this scene apart from all the others in tennis is its lighting—the darkness in the arena, and the flashbulbs popping all over it. As I wrote at the time, it was as if the match, and Nadal’s reaction to winning it, had set off a current that circled the stadium and exploded out of people’s cameras.
The deepest and best celebration of them all: Frenchman Yannick Noah winning at Roland Garros in 1983. I had a friend in college, a guy who didn’t even play tennis, who brought a tape of this match with him to school. He’d watch it whenever he felt down. I spent a few happy weekend mornings reliving it with him. As you can see from this clip, it wasn’t just the moment of victory that was special, it was Noah’s entire performance that day. I remember thinking at the time that there was no possible chance that he could beat Wilander, who had won the French the year before and looked pretty much invincible on clay. I had been playing tennis at my racquet club that morning and planned to watch most of the match afterward. But Noah had run Wilander off the court so quickly, by the time I walked into a crowded TV room at the club, he was setting up to serve at match point. I was stunned to see Wilander’s return float long and Noah throws his arms up in triumph.
Yannick, the last Slam winner to use a wood-based racquet, had done it by charging the net at all times, by using his famous flair and athleticism more forcefully than ever before, by maneuvering Wilander off the court, by angling off volleys, by crushing leaping overheads, and by wiring the Parisian crowd into his desperate, now-or-never intensity. When he won, he looked for his father and jumped into his arms. If anything, this image is improved by the song used here: Toots and the Maytals’ anthem of soulful abandon, “Pressure Drop.”
That music, that moment: I hope it makes you feel a little warmer.
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If Yannick alone doesn't do the trick, try playing all five videos at once. The joys of victory abound.
Have a good weekend.