Game, set and match for human spirit

It was a Saturday. In fact, it had to be a Saturday for God knew a sports and life buff like me shouldn’t have missed these finals. And there were quite a few similarities. Both of these finals were being played in London. Australia was playing England in the Natwest Trophy Final and Venus Williams was vying for her third Wimbledon title. Like England, she also had some formidable opponents to beat. One, her poor form and the other was the silent assassin Lindsay Davenport – a player whom I have always admired. Davenport on the other hand was fighting herself – a nagging injury that she was carrying with remarkable grit. While all the rest of them were fighting against things like form or injury, England was fighting against history. For years it had been beaten to “ashes” by the Aussies and the team also had the poor reputation of losing finals. Interestingly, for once, Australia was fighting against its own Ghost. They lost to Bangladesh in one of the league matches and critics were ready to write their obituary. They were playing for pride, for honor and for keeping their reputation alive. And at the end, all of them won. The England-Australia match ended in a dramatic tie with both teams coming back into the game after huge setbacks. And Venus Williams won because there can’t be a tie in tennis. (If it would have been an option, the match deserved to end in a tie.) Venus won after trailing through out the match apart from the last two games. And Davenport won because she lasted the 2hr-45mins marathon even with an injury. Winning and losing don’t really depend on who is on the podium. Sometimes people lose to win and win to lose. Life is all about perception. Depends how you look at things. For me all of them deserved the title.