The Opponent

For him it was always a mind game. It was finished in his mind before the actual end. It was about maintaining the balance in his mind. More than winning it was about learning the game, enjoying it. It was about playing in the best way possible. The opponent was always on the other side only. Inside the mind it was always about how to play that shot better, how to place that ball better. But tonight was a big and important match and so was the opponent. Tonight it was different. He turned around to look at his opponent lining up his bottle near the foot of the chair. His opponent had a burly built. He had bulging biceps and calf muscles. The physicality of his opponent’s game disturbed him. It was not the way he played. Neither would it let him play the game his way. He realized that his opponent’s physicality was, in fact, the only solution to the game he played as the only way to fail your opponent’s strategy in this game was to play accordingly to it and not giving up. If your opponent believes that you could not play that particular shot, the only way to break his belief is to go ahead and play that shot. It was as simple as that. Though most people did not give up but simply failed to play accordingly. But this one, here, had so much of physical stamina and power that could fail the best of the strategies. His opponent destroyed his mind game by sheer physicality. And as he rose from his chair he realized that that was what was happening here. He had tried everything and his opponent had risen to almost all occasions leaving him with a dearth of ideas. This had disturbed his balance. And he was reminded almost forcefully and unpleasantly of their previous meeting when he had lost very narrowly. His opponent was becoming a force, a reality which he had not yet faced. Over the years his opponent had improved and had become the anti of his game. As he thought deeper, he felt as if he had a large hand in creating that opponent who was now standing on the other side of the court. And as he bounced the ball to serve in the fourth game of the last set, he realised that his opponent was no longer an opponent and no longer existed on the other side of the court. The opponent had become Rafael Nadal and was now in his mind.

-after watching 2009 Australian Open Men's singles Final between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal