Yeoh Siew Hoon catches the Australian Open finals and picks up a few aces.
In a recent BBC HardTalk interview, a question was asked of an Indian sports personality as to what was the one thing he had learnt from his career in sports.
His answer? “Losing.”
In sports, he said, there were more losers than winners and it had taught him to lose gracefully.
As I watched the unflappable Roger Federer get crushed by the one-man Spanish armada of Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open final last Sunday, those words came back to me.
That moment as Federer broke down as he accepted his second-place trophy was excruciating yet so heroic. Weeping openly, he said, “God, this is killing me.”
In that one moment, he displayed, to me, all the grace I have come to associate with him, on and off court.
It takes grace to admit defeat and it takes grace to accept it with such honesty. He laid bare all the despair and frustration he must have felt at losing this one match that stood between him and making history to match Pete Sampras’ record of 14 Grand Slam singles titles.
The man who blocked him was equally gracious. As Federer struggled to collect himself, Nadal put an arm around him and held him long enough so he could finish his speech.
Later, accepting the trophy, his first words were for Federer. “Well, first of all, sorry for today. I really know how you feel right now. It’s really tough. Remember you are a great champion. You are the best in history.”
In an interview after the ceremony, he shared his thoughts about Federer’s breakdown. “It was an emotional moment and I think this also makes sport grander, to see a great champion like Federer expressing his emotions. It shows his human side.”
As we in travel navigate what is destined to be the spring of our discontent, there will be also a lot of losers.
There is, at the moment, very little good news out there.
At Davos, the men spent more time trying to point the finger than point the way ahead. Everyone is looking for “the man” to lead us out of the wilderness and right now, “the man” is Barack Obama who, as great as he is, is definitely not Superman.
There was even discussion on the sidelines as to whether if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters, would we be in the mess we are in? In an article headlined, “The financial collapse? Maybe it’s a guy thing”, the IHT quoted Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi microfinancier, as saying, “Women are more cautious. They wouldn’t have taken the enormous risks that brought the system down.”
Neelie Kroes, the European competition commissioner, blamed it on testosterone. “In general terms, females are a bit less ego-driven and a bit more responsible than men.”
But whether it’s a guy thing, or whether it’s about sports or business, we could all learn something from Federer and Nadal as we work our way through the next few months.
They both gave it their best shot. One lost, one won. Both came out like heroes.
