Friday 17 November 2017

'THE CELEBRATION'

Personally I have never played for big dollars in tennis, wasn't good enough, nowhere near it so I suppose I am stating the obvious when I say that I would not understand the feeling of winning a big tournament.
As previously stated, I have ONE tennis trophy on my mantle piece, it was won in France with my buddy from Perth, WA, Peter Gerrans who carried me through to a doubles tournament victory in 1991. It is the only trophy that means anything to me as winning your local yearly event is not something that is worth a talking point when people walk into your house.
'Albany Open 2010 Glenn ? You 'superstar'........
You know what I mean.
So in regards to my opening paragraph, I am not aware of the feeling of obvious euphoria when a player wins a major event but let's be brutally honest here, some of the winning celebrations simply go way over the top. Let's look at a few 'hits and misses' so to speak.
My first tennis hero Bjorn Borg had his own unique style of celebrating at Wimbledon as the streak from 1976 to 1980 saw him drop to his knees on most occasions in victory though he didn't stay there too long, he had Connor's, Tanner's McEnroe's and Nastase's hands to shake so up he got and met them at the net.
As the years rolled by certain players didn't even get to the net, they were way too busy celebrating to remember something as 'insignificant' as a hand shake to complete the victory.
Two come to mind in particular.
The Davis Cup final of 2000 in Spain saw Juan Carlos Fererro hit a backhand past Australia's very own 'Celebration King' Lleyton Hewitt then fall to the clay in victory as he was mobbed by his team mates. Now I have one of those silly memories and I was 100 per cent certain that no hand shake took place after that match, so I looked it up again.
Good memory GT.
Hewitt left the court amidst the celebrations though in fairness to him, well he did wait at the net for Fererro who did not find the time to actually get there to shake his hand.
How about Wimbledon 1992 ? This was possibly one of the worst acts of celebrating you will ever witness.
Andre Agassi had just squeaked by Goran Ivanisevic if five sets and fell to the ground in celebration. He stayed there 'a while' and he completely forgot about his opponent who in fact walked around the net post, met Andre at the baseline and gave him a hug, nice effort Goran. Someone had to do the right thing.
Hand shakes complete a tennis match, whether you like your opponent or not.
Rafa Nadal took celebrations to a whole new meaning as he rolled around on the ground, usually on the clay after winning an event. One springs to mind in particular. In Rome in 2005 Nadal played what some call one of the greatest ever clay court matches as he just edged Guillermo Coria 7-6 in the fifth and the tie break from memory was 8-6, absolute colossus of a match.
The celebrations by Nadal were time consuming, so much so that Coria walked to the side of the court while Nadal continued to stay on his back. They shook hands eventually.
Rafa has mellowed a little over the years as his US Open celebration this year was rather reserved to say the least compared to his past victory rolls of the past.
Roger Federer had a few years there at Wimbledon where he went with the celebration roll though it was never in the same league as Rafa's though now days Fed is just happy to raise his arms in the air in triumph, you know, the 'old fashioned way'.
There have been some absolute rippers over the years, some completely over the top, others so reserved that you would wonder whether they just won an event or a first round match. This year's London Tour Finals have made me smile at the simplicity of some of the victory celebrations. Jack Sock and Grigor Dimitrov have come up with two of the best I have ever witnessed.
A nod and a smile to their entourage, not even so much as arms in the air. Sure they haven't won the event but if you know anything about these two players you will realise that they have come from the clouds so to speak with their tennis over the past year or so.
To win against top ten players in consecutive matches you would think may just warrant a fist in the air at least. Not so, it's refreshing to see.
Passionate sport tennis, some get a little too passionate about things as they forget about the fact that without the player down the other end the victory celebrations would not have been possible.
Whether you dislike your opponent or not remember this, you beat them, you don't have to rub it in, they are in enough physical and emotional pain without having to wait for you while you carry on like a pork chop.........

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