Friday, September 6, 2013

A Tale of Two Faces

A few days ago, Ana Ivanovic lost her 4th round match at the US Open to Victoria (love to shriek) Azarenka.  On multiple occasions, Azarenka played amazing drop shots, resulting generally in Ivanovic arriving a step late to make a decent shot.  It happened twice in a single game.  Ana's response?  SHE SMILED both times!  Yep.  And Ivanovic lost a close, tight three set match.  But she was IN the match!

About two days later, Andy Murray lost his quarterfinal match to Stanislas Warinka.  On more occasions than I care to recall, Andy completely lost it, having more in common with a petulant 4 year old, than a world class athlete.  It was embarrassing to watch.  Oh yeah, he lost too. But he didn't lose, he sucked.  He had as much chance of winning than I have of convincing Miley Cyrus to keep her clothes on.

In lots of sports, it helps to have a bad memory.  You hit a bad putt, throw an interception, miss a volley, fugetaboutit!  To focus on the bad shot only helps your opponent. But in Murray's case, he took it a step further.  To add insult to insult, Murray would scream at himself even when Warinka would hit an amazing winner.  A classy response would be clapping your own racquet, not a tantrum.

I guess the moral of the story is if you are going to lose, keep it classy.  Ivanovic did and almost won.  Murray didn't and got clobbered.  And here's another thought, let's get a Kickstarter campaign going for Andy Murray so this millionaire can get him some psychological help.  I'm serious.