THE CULTURE OF LOSING

I found an interesting article on the internet the other day: a paper produced by the University of Stirling entitled "The Culture of Winning in Scottish Sport". Surprisingly it was more than a page long, mainly because it went into great detail to explain why there was none. I particularly liked the bit where Frank Hadden, the former national Rugby Union coach, referred to Scottish sport’s “…periods of unbelievable over-achievement”. Not on his watch.
Which brings me on to Andy Murray’ third attempt to lift a Grand Slam trophy. After putting up a decent fight in the first set in Melbourne, he lost the next two in the time it took me to have a shower and breakfast in my hotel; and it wasn’t even that good a breakfast.
I don’t have much interest in tennis – otherwise I would have watched - but Sunday’s Australian Grand Slam final just served to emphasise the pointlessness of tennis in particular and Scottish sport in general.
Let me explain; in most sports, when you get to a final, the outcome is evenly contested. Take, for example, the World Cup last year – there was extra time and plenty of drama. The English referee even came in for a bit of stick, which at least shows that his decisions had some bearing on the ebb and flow of play.
And the last Rugby Union World Cup final in ‘07 – remember it? The incumbent champions, represented by a hopelessly inadequate team from England, almost beat the cream of South Africa in Paris. Even in American Football – the most contrived game on the planet- the outcome is usually in the balance until most of the fat ladies have sung.
But in tennis, the classic five set dog-fight is something of a rarity, and therefore it fails to deliver satisfaction as a sport. The reasons for this, and why Murray was so comprehensively outclassed, are obvious.
Let me state that I don’t have a problem with Murray. I used to dislike him in the way that I disliked small dogs – both were irritating in public and whined incessantly. However, he has done a lot to improve his image over the years, and who cares if he did wear a Paraguayan shirt when England played them in the World Cup? He still roars a bit on court, which is unsightly, but the unmanly bulging of ping-pong ball sized biceps when he wins a point is now, thankfully, a thing of the past. He even said recently that he considers himself to be British as well as Scottish, as some of his ancestors came from Newcastle; same thing.
There are two main reasons he lost on Sunday; body language and tactical naivety. Djokovic looked like he meant business well before he stepped onto the court; just Google him and see what I mean. You don’t have to look far to find his impersonation of Sharapova and Nadal in the men’s locker rooms, and a still of him hitting an underwater winner in a swimming pool, dressed in a dinner suit. Everything about him is big and fun, whereas everything about Murray is, well…self-effacing and dower. On court, dressed in white, he looked like a tennis player, whereas Murray looked as if he had forgotten his kit and had to raid the PE department’s lost property bin. And then with the first set gone south, Murray looked like a beaten man.
So on to tactics; even my cursory knowledge of tennis is enough to understand that if you hit the ball straight back to your opponent and allow him to dictate, you relinquish control. In so doing, you rely on your opponent to make mistakes, and on Sunday, Djokovic made very few. His defensive capabilities were immense; his ability to cover ground almost inhuman; and his capacity to re-gain balance and to return the ball beyond Murray’s reach was, at times, breathtaking.
Murray’s strengths are his first serve and attacking that of his opponent’s. His success ratio on both was negligible. By the middle of the third set (by which time I was on bacon and eggs - but I have watched the highlights) Murray was the analogous boxer on the ropes. But this is not boxing where two fighters are pitted together on the whim of promoters; this is a final involving the two last protagonists in a knock-out tournament in which hundreds started. There is but a single digit which stands between these two in terms of world ranking, so shouldn’t the contest reflect that?
The problem for Andy Murray, is Andy Murray. There is such a huge burden of history and national expectation on his shoulders that he simply beats himself. From three grand Slam finals, he has yet to win a single set. On Sunday, with the ghosts of Federer and Nadal banished, another spectre appeared from the wings in the form of Djokovic. And, I fear, unless he meets another Scot in a subsequent final, this is going to be the run of things for some time to come.
He is, without doubt, peerless as the icon of almost-achievement in Scottish sport. I had a look at the Scottish Sports’ Halls of Fame and didn’t even recognise the names of most of the 80 inductees. Only Sir Jackie Stewart, Sandy Lyle and Allan Wells could argue to have reached and maybe surpassed similar heights.
And to stand alongside them, he will have to win something; unless, perhaps, what we are witnessing from Murray is one of those “…periods of unbelievable over-achievement.” And let’s hope, for the sake of the game of tennis, and for Scottish sport, that this is not so.