sorry if this has been posted, it has been hard to keep track but this isn't a run of the mill article so i wanted to make sure you all saw it
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A Picture of Grace by Rohit Brijnath
Amidst the rapidly blurring memories of a riveting Australian Open, this one moment stands sharp. It haunts me like lines from an old love letter. Yesterday I had to print a copy of a photograph of it to look again. As I type, it sits beside me.
There is seemingly nothing to the picture, yet it holds me in its thrall. It tells of an act of utter simplicity yet one that is clearly uncommon. It is a moment, frozen on film, that tells us more about a man than an entire match.
There is something about Marat Safin, you know, that makes things personal. On Sunday night, he breaks a nation’s heart and then they clasp him to it. Of how many men can we say that?
The photograph is of a moment after the Safin-Federer semi-final, a match replete with stroke-making of startling effrontery and despairing struggles for momentum. The Russian has a way of turning matches into operas, and the Swiss for a while has been in fine song.
When victory is sealed, Safin does not leap for the moon, or gesticulate wildly, or snarl like a scalp-taker in Federer’s direction. In times of exaggerated reactions to victory, like an American football player who mimicked mooning the audience, this is tasteful. More pointedly, from an instinctively theatrical man, given to communicating emotion, this is interesting.
Safin has, by winning the Open, wiped off cobwebs of self-doubt that have accumulated in his mind. It is five years, more or less, since his last Grand Slam title and they have been hard years of insecurity, of an injured back, hurt wrist and wounded psyche.
Yet he remains all respectful restraint. His behaviour after the semi-final suggests he has not conquered Federer but merely beaten him this one time; similarly, in the Final, he has shattered Hewitt and his nation’s dream, and as the pieces lie at his feet, he feels no need to step on them.
On court, he dares to express himself, his agony, his frustration when others do not let a single emotion register. He hurls his racket but it is done without malice; he berates himself yet rarely linesmen like Hewitt does. Always there is a humanness to Safin, and mostly it is fetching.
But it’s also why so many thought he wouldn’t win the Final, because his mind and talent appeared beyond harnessing, because he had forgotten how to win Slams, because this was Australia with 15,000 Australians in the audience cheering on Hewitt. But he did win, and he still did not gloat.
But of all these glimpses into Safin, the photograph tells the most. The match with Federer is over, and the Swiss, for all his heartbreak, embraces Safin at the net, they exchange words and go to their separate seats.
What happens next, usually, is that the loser will exit swiftly for sorrow is best not left on show while the winner will linger and soak in triumph he has bravely constructed. Except this ritual of ages has an abrupt interruption, for the briefest of moments, so brief that people may not really sense its significance, custom is abandoned.
Federer, head bowed, racket bags on both shoulders, is walking out, and as he passes Safin, it is expected they will politely ignore each other, the victor allowing the defeated his ego, the defeated not wishing to look his champion in the face.
But incredibly, by instinct not premeditation, Safin puts out his hand and rests it on Federer’s shoulders.
*click*
It is nothing but everything. I am staggered for I have not seen this before, astonished because grace has become an aberration; this gesture does not fit the modern urge for one-upmanship, it does not sit with the silly vanity of the times.
We cannot say exactly what message Safin’s act is sending. Perhaps it is one simply of solidarity, that he knows, too, how losing hurts; perhaps it is merely an acknowledgement of the sustained battle they have just fought and that so little separated them.
Perhaps it is an act of humility, as if he knew one defeat does not truly end a reign; perhaps it is recognition of each other as human beings, an understanding that while they may play our their hearts in public arenas they know there is life beyond this court.
It is beautiful, it is a gesture of spontaneous decency in a time when we find ways to excuse Hewitt’s petulance, it is a natural moment in a sporting world of artificiality, it is an instinctive sign of respect in an era of stage-managed show biz.
Federer does not shrug him off, or freeze, but puts out his left hand to touch Safin. And for this fleeting of instants, it is a better sporting world.
;D
