How Kobe Bryant’s death pierced the tennis bubble

Athletes occupy a cocoon. The sporting bubble takes on epic proportions over the two weeks of a major tennis tournament. Whether in the amateur days at insular private clubs, the pros barnstorming in obscure venues, to today’s slickly managed professional game, tennis players are superb at keeping the blinders on and doing as much as possible to distance themselves from any intrusions that detract from the never-ending mission of preparation, competition and recovery.

But a year ago in Melbourne, the tennis bubble was sharply pierced when word came of the tragic death of basketball legend Kobe Bryant in a helicopter accident. While the entire world mourned, the tennis community reeled in its own sad and personal way.

As Tennis Honors: Kobe Bryant showed, Kobe was a tennis aficionado.

“He really got tennis,” Martina Navratilova said.

Bryant attended tournaments, learned to play the game, studied it closely and interacted with a great many players. To Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka, he was a mentor. To Nick Kyrgios, he was an inspiration, to the point where last year in Melbourne, Kyrgios donned a Lakers jersey with Bryant’s number on it for the warmup and then proceeded to compete harder than he ever had.

The tennis-basketball connection intrigues. As far back as the 1930s, the legendary Don Budge and his doubles partner Gene Mako enjoyed wandering into schoolyards and playing pick-up games. Recently deceased legend Tony Trabert lettered at the University of Cincinnati. A major factor in Navratilova’s greatness was the wisdom she received from basketball great Nancy Lieberman. And then there’s John Lucas, an NBA player for more than a decade who was also skilled enough at tennis to have competed at the US Open.

Lucas has also spoken thoughtfully about the challenges of each sport. Tennis, he said, is harder because you must take every shot and can never leave the game. On the other hand, Lucas believes, basketball makes you a better person because you learn to work with other people.

But the suddenness of Bryant’s death went far beyond the lines of each court; it jarred the sporting paradigm. If you ever want to meet someone who fancies their chances for immortality, talk to a professional athlete. Tennis, a sport with a calendar that mostly follows the sun, takes place amid its own never-ending hopeful summer—never more vividly than in Australia, when all gather to start the year at the major dubbed “The Happy Slam.”

Bryant’s death was a lightning bolt. Down Under, the world seemed at once bigger, smaller—and most of all, crueler.