WIMBLEDON, England—Interested in becoming a sports columnist? Forget journalism school, forget college, drop out of high school if you can. The only thing you need to do is this: Learn to use the word bestride in a sentence.
Bestride, bestrode, bestriding: You might as well practice conjugating it for a few minutes. The past tense is useful as well. Once you have the forms memorized, you can start clearing space on your mantle for your Pulitzer.
I know you don’t believe me, so I’ll point you to a higher authority on the subject. Here’s how today’s column by Simon Barnes, chief sports writer at the Times, begins:
HAVING BESTRODE CENTRE COURT AS AN IMMORTAL FOR SO MANY YEARS, ROGER FEDERER WAS MADE TO LOOK ALL TOO FALLIBLE
See what I mean? But Barnes isn’t finished there. This is what he writes when he steps back, adjusts the pince-nez, and takes the long view of Federer:
“He remains perhaps the greatest master of his sport any of us has seen, bestriding tennis as Don Bradman once bestrode cricket.”
Two in one sentence; the man knows his business. Barnes could have used “straddled.” He could have used “towered.” He could even have settled for—God, no—“dominated.” But this was the time for something more, the time for elegy, the time for wistfulness, the time to begin Federer’s transition from earthling to legend. Barnes ends his piece by getting a head start on the coming onslaught of Federer nostalgia:
“So we have to brace ourselves for an unfolding sadness: for further experiences of Roger failing to be the Roger of the glory years. Respect the things that makes such a man carry on: relish for the struggle, sheer love of the game itself, glorious self-deluding ambition, and behind all that, the certainty that nothing will be as good ever again.”
Second tip for aspiring ink-stained wretches: Whatever your subject, you can't go wrong with Barnes's last sentiment—"The certainty that nothing will be as good ever again." This, more than anything else, is what people long to hear.
Anyway, it’s true, there are a few times when Barnes leaves this American behind in his descriptions of Federer. Like here:
“He wore a white shirt that gave him the look of a pox-doctor’s clerk. I never felt confident of the result when I saw that jacket.”
Yet all was forgiven when I read this perfect phrase, about Federer’s final error:
“Ah, that terrible ballooning backhand error on match point.”
That's good, really good. Still, it's too bad Federer's last shot couldn't have bestrode something along the way...