What with all the whoring, coke-snorting and match-fixing, it has been a tricky few weeks for those of us, ahem, who look to sport for moral guidance. Incidentally, it’s worth remembering that all those stories which, quite rightly, have set huge waves rolling across the news and sport agenda appeared in the News of the World, a paper that has come under heavy fire recently — though if you listen closely you can hear the squeal of axes being ground. So keep in mind that without papers such as the Screws, some very dodgy people will continue to get away with some very dodgy deeds. As Donald Trelford, the former Observer editor, pointed out, this sort of journalism is sometimes described as ‘muck-raking’. MPs use the term disparagingly. But newspaper people should use the word with pride, as there is a great deal of muck to be raked.
Anyway, enough of the embattled Murdoch press and, full disclosure, they currently employ me. But it is a vaguely dispiriting time if you love sport, which is why the events at Flushing Meadow have done so much to lift the spirit. Men’s tennis must be the best sport on the planet right now, athletes playing at their outer limit, exhausted, bold, inspired. Rafa Nadal’s brilliant victory over the battling Novak Djokovic in a storm-tossed US Open final confirms the Spaniard as the true heir to Federer. He is also a famously nice man, modest, graceful, charming — and willing to queue for easyJet, which makes him a suitable candidate for canonisation.
The semi-final between Federer and Djokovic delivered tennis of breathtaking quality, with the outcome completely unpredictable. It was the essence of great sport, a miniature version of perhaps the greatest sporting match of all time, the Federer-Nadal Wimbledon final of 2008.
Maybe Federer wanted it too much. Djokovic, on the other hand, was driven by some carefree lunatic desire: as he said afterwards, ‘I just closed my eyes and belted it. If it went in, good, if it didn’t… well, I’ve lost to Roger Federer.’ The Serbian had outplayed Fed all match but Roger hung in there and in that fifth set it looked like he might steal it. Then Djokovic killed it with attacking play of insane freedom, inspired by the sense that justice was on his side. He was the boxer who had never won the title; Federer, the veteran former champion, was trying to win on coolness and familiarity. But it wasn’t enough. Federer lost the game to the better player, just as he has lost in recent slams to Berdych and Soderling. But in that fifth set against Djokovic we saw the moment when the greatest tennis player there has ever been finally relinquished his grip on the game. We should remember him with wonder.
But the epic brilliance of that semi-final made me think, again, how blessed we still are — irrespective of the charlie, and the bent no-balls, and the attentions of Juicy Jeni and her pals. So here are five other great moments in sport from just the last 12 months (which rules out Usain Bolt’s mythic 100m in 9.58 sec in August last year). In chronological order: Sea The Stars winning the Arc, one of the most thrilling sporting battles ever, and all in 21/2 minutes; the smile on Amy Williams’s face after her gold in the skeleton bob at the Winter Olympics; perennial losers New Orleans taking revenge on Katrina and winning Superbowl LXIV; Isner and Mahut fighting out their preposterous, heroic 70-68 final set at Wimbledon; and Spain beating Germany in the World Cup semis, a masterclass in football as physical chess — two teams perfectly executing their game plans in a match that should have been the final. Well, that’s my list anyway.
Roger Alton is an executive editor at the Times.
Comments