While the Runner-up Gently Weeps

He can appear superhuman. He can wow us with the ways in which he stretches and bends his body in seemingly unthinkable positions. He can make live tennis on a television look like a video game.

Yet for all his preternatural talents, Novak Djokovic was reduced within the bounds of the match he played on Sunday, in the French Open final. He was made to look like a Top 10 or even Top 20 player on tour, that at the hands (or the one clenched fist) of Stan Wawrinka. The Swiss hit absurd winners from all over the place, 60 of them in total, in his 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win over the world No. 1. His brutal onslaught was such that, after winning the opening set, Djokovic, winner of eight major titles, was rendered a spectator to greatness.

When it was over, Wawrinka had his second major title, his first French Open championship. Meanwhile, Djokovic has arrived in the final at Roland Garros three times now, leaving empty handed each time. In the moments that followed his latest crushing loss, Djokovic, the one who made nine-time French Open champ Rafael Nadal look downright average last week, was whelmed. Whelmed when nearly 15,000 fellow humans rained praise on him for nearly two and a half minutes. Have you ever seen a finalist so buoyed by the chants and claps of an audience, one so intent on hoisting him up as a future heir? I have:

To his credit, Djokovic was all too human in the moment. That's what we want from our superstars—not, say, the icy-cool conduct of others past and present. We want emotion. We want passion. We want them to speak what they feel, not what they ought to say. And Djokovic's countenance said a thousand words on Sunday.

That's not to say that he has a patent on such waterworks. Other major finalists before him have been similarly lachrymose—not that they expected it in their moments, either. Consider Andy Murray's public display after Roger Federer saw him off in the 2012 Wimbledon final:

As the axiom has it, what goes around comes around. Today's king is yesteryear's vassal. Federer himself was induced (note: not reduced) to tears after losing the 2009 Australian Open final to Nadal. Imagine the polished pro, the Greatest of All Time, delivering a quivering "Umm" to begin his runner-up speech before being rendered unable to speak much at all for a few minutes. It's unfathomable today, but it's just what transpired that January:

These portraits of honesty have all arrived in the past four days to six years. Here's what remains fascinating about them: Each man looks incredibly youthful. For all their rapturous victories, each has lost on a huge international stage enough times to know the true meaning of winning.

Got a tip or a point to make? Hit me on Twitter at @jonscott9.