The live on-court interview, especially after the final of a grand slam tournament, has got to be the most uncomfortable tradition in tennis, if not downright cruel for the loser.
Those pitying ovations do little to assuage his feelings and the groan-worthy questions that follow – “Must be tough when he is playing like that” – do not really help lift his mood.
Then why do we persist? Every other sport gives the loser a few private moments in the locker room, or wherever, to recollect himself before facing the media. But in tennis, the cameras never leave you for a moment.
“Get out of my face, please,” a peeved Roger Federer told a cameraman at a changeover during the second set of his semi-final loss to Novak Djokovic on Thursday.
Andy Murray would have loved to say something similar to the cameras after losing his fifth Australian Open final on Sunday, but he had to endure and thank everyone, including his wife, as he desperately tried to hold back the tears.
At the 2010 Australian Open, however, he could not hold back after losing the final to Federer in straight sets.
“I can cry like Roger,” he said. “It’s just a shame I can’t play like him.”
Federer, himself, was at the receiving end 12 months earlier in Melbourne and could not hold back his tears after losing a third successive grand slam final to Rafael Nadal.
“God, it’s killing me,” Federer, then 27, said.
Read more:
Pressure on Serena Williams here to stay despite Australian Open final setback
Djokovic needs a rival, Nadal problems persist: Five lessons from the Australian Open
Murray must have probably muttered similar words under his breath as he broke down after being handed the microphone following his loss to Federer in the 2012 Wimbledon final.
“This is meant to be the easy part, doing the speeches,” he said at the news conference later. “Sometimes it feels quite hard compared with playing a tennis match.”
That can be true, especially after a loss. Over the past decade, we have watched numerous of our greats, from Andy Roddick to Nadal, looking like wrecks at those live on-court interviews.
Moved by Federer’s tears at the 2009 Australian Open, Neil Harman, writing for The Times, asked: “Have we become such a voyeuristic society that we need a great champion to be reduced to rubble before our eyes?”
We need to be asking the same question again. Do we really want that?
Would it not be better to allow the winner to take centre stage, alone, and not reduce his moment of triumph into some soap opera?
Yes, Murray’s tears at 2012 Wimbledon did endear him to a nation, but it is not good TV anymore, given the regularity with which he sheds tears.
He cried when he helped Great Britain beat Luxembourg to earn a Davis Cup promotion play-off spot in 2011 and last year, he cried when helped take the team into the semis.
He cried even when he accepted the freedom of the city from his home town of Stirling.
Have we ever seen Djokovic break down on court, or camera, after losing a major final?
He has lost plenty of them. Between the 2012 and 2014 French Open, he finished second-best in five of the six major finals he contested, and yet there was not a tear in his eyes.
There were no teary-eyed speeches either when his “tennis mother”, his first coach Jelena Gencic, passed away during the 2013 French Open.
He was playing the Monte Carlo Masters when his grandfather Vladimir passed away in 2012, but, though disturbed, Djokovic decided to play on and reached the final.
Maybe, he did shed a tear or two in the solitude of the locker rooms, but on court, he has remained defiantly steely-eyed, determined to improve. He has never sought sympathy, not even when he has been up against Federer’s partisan fans in packed coliseums.
Djokovic’s resolve, despite the odds, has made for compelling viewing.
Sport is all about champions and their grit, so let us keep it that way. There are enough tear-jerking soap operas and emotional thanksgiving speeches elsewhere on TV.
arizvi@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport
