State of Grace: Losing in 2009

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After a spectacular loss to Roger Federer in the 2007 Australian Open, Andy Roddick, said, "It was frustrating, it was miserable, it sucked, it was terrible...Besides that it was fine."

Decades ago, for those of us in the US old enough to remember, ABC used to open a weekly sports show citing, in equal measure: the Joy of Victory...and the Agony of Defeat (using a horrible skiing accident to illustrate the latter).

The truth is that defeat, though agonizing, can often be the most inspiring illumination of character that comes out of a sporting contest.

This year, Roger Federer took two of the most spectacular losses a champion can accept, and also recorded two of the most spectacular wins a champion could ever make in meeting, then breaking, the all-time Slam record formerly held by Pete Sampras.

But this is an article about that state of grace that can sometimes be entered by a sporting champion in defeat.

1) 2009 Australian Open Final

Roger Federer was so distraught in his runner-up speech that he lost his composure and cried in front of 15,000 fans, an international TV audience and a collection of the sport’s all-time legends gathered at the ceremony ostensibly to honor his achievement in meeting the all-time Slam record.

For me, this occasion is memorable for two things. One is the passion that Roger brings to the game that he rarely releases on the court, but that emerged as fans acknowledged their appreciation for it, and he said “God, it’s killing me!” (somewhat reminiscent of the tears he shed at his loss at the 2008 Wimbledon final, where the evident pain of the loss only served to further illuminate how magnificent an event it was).

The second moment that stood out was the gracious way in which the champion of the event, Rafael Nadal, was able to help Roger regroup and make composed remarks, as is expected.

2) 2009 Madrid Master’s Series Semi-Final

It was the longest semi-final in Master’s Series history, not only tournament history. Novak Djokovic walked off the court in an evident state of distress after giving his all and having his heart broken. He acknowledged later that he was having trouble getting over the loss. He skipped Queen’s Club, where he stood to face Nadal again, opted instead for Halle, where he stood instead to face Roger Federer, but lost early, and in fact, his performance (that of both contestants of the Rome semi-final) suffered for months after. Unable to defend points, he dropped from World No. 3 to World No. 4.

For me, and I can’t do it justice, there is something elegant about having a loss affect one’s performance so. It is illustrative of the heart and self-validation that went into that particular contest.

3) 2009 French Open Fourth Round

Rafael Nadal had never lost at Roland Garros. His opponent in the QF was one whom he rather famously disliked on the tour, and to whom he had administered a drubbing 1-and-0 on clay just a few weeks before. The loss was compared by one commentator to that of boxer Mike Tyson against Buster Douglas in 1990—a shocking change of fortune that affected the future of the sport.  

Nadal’s extraordinary remarks on the occasion of this loss included some rather poetic work. “Defeats never make you grow, but you also realize how difficult what I achieved up until today was, and this is something you need sometimes. You need a defeat to give the value to your victories.”

The fact that tennis has these traditions of the handshake following every match and occasionally speeches from the loser only seconds after the loss, which are for the most part extraordinarily gracious, was captured with profound irony on the occasion of this loss, as the NBA playoffs were underway, and a famous player and the team he led had failed to qualify. The basketball star in question (Lebron James) walked off the court without making the customary remarks, and so the world’s press was treated to this wonderful dichotomy of grace, recorded in a fantasy telephone call in commentary on ESPN (presented at the last page of this article).

4) 2009 Wimbledon Final

Yet again, Andy Roddick lost in spectacular fashion to Roger Federer, and handed him one of the greatest triumphs of Federer’s career—his 15th Grand Slam title (allowing Roger to reverse the tears he’d shed in January at the AO). After playing what amounted to a seven-set match (the final set went to 14-16, and not in his favor), he had to sit in the chair and applaud while Roger made the rounds with the golden trophy in his hands.  

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