The Goddess of Grunt and the Queen of De-Nile
Maria Sharapova made a powerful statement yesterday in the NASDAQ-100 semifinals. Let me translate it for you:
“If you want to be back on top of this game, Venus, you’d better find and bring your A-game and stop pretending that the helter-skelter stuff you’ve lapsed into is good enough to win at the highest level.”
If you watched the match, you saw Sharapova, a dedicated, disciplined, no-nonsense tennis player, rip the façade off a game in neglect. It wasn’t so much that Maria routined Venus (4 and 3), because in all fairness there were some great rallies and wonderful points that brought out the best in both players. It was more that, in contrast to a very on-message Maria, Venus was sloppy and unfocused, a moving portrait of indiscipline punctuated every few strokes by one of her signature splits as she attempted to wallop a winner. It all amounted to a statement of her own. Let me translate:
“I’m a player adrift, hoping that my athleticism and reputation will see me through when I have neither a disciplined game, nor a clear game plan, nor the steady, quiet confidence that comes from loving what I do and having done the homework it asks of me.”
Of course, this is the Queen of De-Nile, so when I asked her after the match if all the errors she made (the ones that she said cost her the match, as if Sharapova’s highly disciplined, cool play had nothing to do with the outcome) might be markers of underlying fitness or focus issues, she lamely replied: “No, no, I don’t think so. The thing in tennis is that you always have another match.”
Right. But guess what, Venus. That next match won’t be Saturday’s women’s final. It will be a first-rounder, wherever you choose to play next. And if you’re content with that, ’nuff said.
Here’s the thing that really gets me; it’s one thing to be in denial about why you’re losing (to paraphrase a famous line, “Great players can’t handle the truth!”). It’s quite another to insult your opponent (not to mention the intelligence of every sentient being even remotely interested in you) by declaring, “It was just a match that was all about the errors I was making.” As truisms morphing into rationalizations becoming excuses goes, this is about as good as it gets. But here’s something else: Want to know what Venus’ response was when asked if she stuck to a practice/training schedule?
“Well, I hit in the morning, I try to train in the afternoon,” she said. “But some days I take it easy, too. So it’s a cycle. Like, my life is really unpredictable, so I don’t know what the next day will bring.”
Want to know what Maria said when the same kind of question was put to her?
“Well, I think it’s an individual’s decision. It’s either you want tennis to be your number one priority and, you know, you set other things aside, or you prefer doing other things than playing tennis,” she said. “I think that’s what really motivates me. When I have five days off and I’m doing shoots or I’m doing whatever, I’m really hungry to get back on the court. Because that’s where I feel, ‘This is what I do, this is my job, and I love doing it.’ ”
And you wonder why Venus is waning and planet Maria’s star is waxing?
OK, I’ve been pretty tough on Venus and Serena, the reluctant champions, lately. I’ve even gotten e-mails accusing me of being a racist. So here’s an observation touching on race:
One of the great things about the match was that there was little discernible difference—athletically—between the African-American woman and the blond-haired, blue-eyed Russian girl. This was not a battle of stereotypes between the cool, strategic, consistent white girl and the explosive, spontaneous, athletic black girl. This was about two great female athletes going toe-to-toe, and it was decided by the blandest but perhaps most powerful of factors—the discipline that provides a springboard for every über-athlete, from Jerry Rice to Roger Clemens to Michael Jordan—and now Maria Sharapova.
The irony is that I’ve always defended the flaky or flawed competitor’s right to waste his or her career, buck the system, or otherwise refuse to be a cog in the big, commercial wheel. I’ll say it again: If Venus wants to be the neo–flower-child of tennis, fine. But she should cowboy up and say something like, “I can’t beat the top players with the game I have now and I don’t care. More power to them, but life’s too short and I’ve got to many other fish to fry.”
But these tired lines—“It’s all about my errors”, or, “On my best day, I’m the greatest ever” are not only arrogant, empty boasts, they’re a form of theft. They’re stealing the credit that should go to that poor, one-dimensional, unimaginative, uncool, uninteresting soul to whom diligence, discipline, and tradecraft are of paramount importance.