Sania, Sourav and Narain
If Charlotte Cooper had been in Melbourne, Hyderabad or Dubai in the last couple of months, she would have been nonplussed. What fuss over a girl winning a few matches here and there!
The story goes that shortly after winning her first singles Wimbledon title in 1895 Charlotte hopped on to her bicycle and went home where she found her brother Dr Harry Cooper tending to the garden. “What have you been doing Chattie?” he asked. “I’ve just won the Championship,” she replied. Her unimpressed brother said nothing and buried himself in the roses once again.
Times have changed dramatically since, but the collective disappointment amongst Indians across the globe when Sania Mirza lost in the quarterfinal of the Dubai Open last week was understandable. Success stories in Indian sport have been rare.
Is Sania scripting an epic? Who knows, but I believe this setback-of-sorts has probably come at the right time. It could become the turning point of her life — and not only as a professional tennis player.
Defeat in competitive sport can provide life’s greatest lessons about how to win. It’s an ego-buster. It sublimates aggression without killing ambition. It creates a fresh perspective of self, opponent, sport and life. Indeed, there is no better reality check.
Sania’s been on a roll in the past couple of months. She’s performed way above her potential and outplayed some high-ranked players. This proves she has the mettle to break into the highest echelons of women’s tennis, but it also means that she now has to reset her benchmark, keep pushing herself up the learning curve and win consistently.
From here it gets tougher. In the top 100 women players, there are at least 40 who are under 22-years-of age, all aiming for the top spot. Only the extraordinary will make it, obviously. “I’m not involved with tennis, I’m committed to it,” Martina Navratilova once told a journalist who wanted to know the secret of her success.
No better mantra for Sania to follow.
As Sourav squares up to Inzamam (am stretching the imagery a bit here admittedly) next week, I am amazed at the complete absence of rancour, suspicion and fear this time when India plays Pakistan. In the past, administrators from both countries would be wary of each other, the media would be cynical and believing the worst, and the players would be petrified of failure. But not any more.
The tour to Pakistan last year was cathartic in many ways, and largely because the political rhetoric changed from confrontation to accommodation, which is a lesson in itself. Suddenly, people of the two countries began to see each other differently. The warm hospitality of the Pakistani people, brought home so vividly by television, helped negate decades of prejudice and suspicion in just six weeks.
The bitterness of the past has been replaced by tolerance, if not bonhomie. One side losing to the other is not seen as national disgrace. Imagine Inzamam-ul-Haq retaining his captaincy despite defeats in the Tests and one-dayers. Bishen Bedi, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Asif Iqbal will tell you that times were different not too long back.
For all the bhaichara, the cricket promises to be uncompromising, as it always is when the two countries play anything. The form book indicates India as favourites, but experience cautions me from making a firm committment. The nature of India-Pakistan series’ has always been topsy-turvy in which punters have burnt their wealth and critics their credibility.
My prediction? Cricket doesn’t get better than this. Enjoy!
And finally, Narain Karthikeyan’s maiden race in the Formula One today is not just about speeding cars and one man’s achievement. Perchance it has put Indian sport on the fast track too.