The Deuce Club, 1.17
***By TW Contributing Writer, Heidi Kim
Today, I muse on the oft debated question: What is the best type of match? What is the best type of match for a KAD? If you are a Federer fan, would you rather go back to watch Wimbledon 2007 finals or AO 2007 semis, what I think of as the beat-down of all time against poor Andy Roddick? If you are a Nadal KAD, do you replay that epic win in Rome against Federer or is your YouTube playlist a highlights reel of his many crushing victories at Roland Garros?
Here's what David Mamet, famous playwright and director, has to say in his book Three Uses of the Knife:
Mamet, author of such famous works as Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow, is one of the great contemporary American playwrights. I haven't gone over all of his available work methodically, but I did listen to the director's commentary on The Winslow Boy, an utterly fantastic period/psychological/family drama, and learned a lot about the nitty-gritty techniques of filmmaking. Highly recommend it.
But David, love, I thought when I read this, you have a lot to learn about sports fans and their contrary ways.
Perhaps this has something to do with watching team sports rather than an adored individual athlete. A game (or in tennis, a match) is obviously a drama. But it also allows for wonderment. Escapism. Sheer, jaw-dropping, David Foster Wallace down on his knees and spraying popcorn everywhere-type admiration. I know from seeing this discussion on this blog many times before that many fans would rather watch their champion race towards victory at full stretch, untroubled by HawkEye or the winds of fate. Or real wind.
And yet, isn't that three-act structure often what happens in even the most dramatically crushing of wins? Take AO 2007 semis: Federer comes out playing gorgeously, stomping on Roddick's strategy. In set #2, he takes off into the land o' legend, hitting impossible shots with a mere flick of the wrist and passing poor Andy at the net hither and thither. And in set #3, though not exactly reeling it back in, the champion heads for home calmly and inexorably, like a cow on Pete's farm in the Andes heading home for its warm, comfortable barn. (I don't think Pete has cows. Federer, however, used tohave one.)
Even the most dominant game is just not a fun game to watch if it has no dramatic ebb and flow, no momentum. Don't some folks complain about Sampras and his boringly efficient serve? Ivanisevic, Mr. Ace for every Double Fault, was certainly more dramatic to watch, though his matches had so many ebbs and flows that they weren't dramas so much as a series of heart attacks. In other words, he defied our rational synthesis. Constantly.
Who knew that's what we keep looking for? Just remember during the AO that whether you're watching for the joy of gloating or the joy of dramatic reversal, you are bolstering your survival mechanisms and sharpening your analysis skills, the same things that keep you fed, warm, and alive.
Oh, and enjoy the popcorn.
-Heidi
P.S. As always, this is your space for dedicated OT chatter. Next week we'll hopefully have some pics from Ruth, but as always, feel free to send news or photos along to me.