Australian Open II

"All the lights, one by one, here they come" - Hamilton Leithauser

It’s Friday morning in Melbourne, crisp, clear and sunny, carrying with it a promise of rolling heat, only mere hours after temperatures fell to 10 degrees Celsius for no apparent reason. Another day of mainly snacking and not eating, of mainly napping and not sleeping, has brushed past me like a long lost lover. In this moment, I’m looking over Melbourne’s skyline of banks and high-rises, trying to find words to describe why tennis is the best sport in the world. Then, I stop and notice that the people in whose mailboxes I plop up weekly and as sudden as the cold grasped Melbourne yesterday evening know that already. There is nobody here that I have to convince.

If you were woken up in Europe by chants and cheers, if you felt an earthquake of applause over in the Americas, it’s probably because Stan Wawrinka won his second round match in the fifth set tie break assisted by sheer will and mental fortitude and a quality of play that got him three major titles. Stan has always been more reserved than outgoing when you ran into him in the player’s lounge but this year something has shifted. He’s up for chats while waiting for coffee, he laughs at people’s (mine) dad jokes about him having the recovery time of a teenager and above all, he seems free.

Having gone through a painful retirement only a few years ago, I know that retirement itself is not the problem. It’s the letting go part that is challenging. It’s the letting go part that has claw marks on it when you finally release it.

There are so many things to consider. You don’t want to miss the right moment, you’re scared of the future and what it will bring, you’ve forgotten to structure a day when it is not filled with practices, trainings and massages. A single day with its dusk and its dawn, its sunrise and its sunset, can contain a daunting emptiness for professional athletes who are in the midst of shedding a coarse layer of identity.

quit your job and divorce your husband, the best show on television is back

Stan has let go. He’s made the decision that this is going to be his last year as a professional tennis player and now that he has, it’s like half the bill has been paid in advance.

It’s a wondrous feeling when a person realises that they’ve exerted their freedom of choice. The most amount of agency one can have as a human being is making a choice. The bigger the choice is, the bigger the freedom after you’ve made it will feel.

In other news, my new favourite player has emerged from the purgatory of the qualifying tournament. She is 19 years old, her name is Nikola Bartunkova and she casually ousted both Daria Kasatkina in the first round of main draw and beat the red hot and in-form Belinda Bencic in a rowdy late night match. She has the game of Karolina Muchova and the passion of unhinged youth. She serves and volleys, she crushes and rushes, she slices and dices and I’m pretty sure I saw her chop, puree and broil, too. But more importantly, she carries with her a thing that reminds us why we are here in the first place: The exaltation of competition itself. It’s the sound of blood rushing through your veins when the scoreboard hits 4:4 in the third set in front of a drunk, riotous crowd which came to see drama that makes you keep coming back to a sport that not only promises a better life but also a complete loss of sanity.

chop, chop, everybody - nikola is cooking

Everything has its price, I guess.

Who needs sanity, though, when you can watch the Australian Open at 3 am instead. Who needs sleep when you can watch Jess Pegula hit 9 aces in two sets? Who needs home-cooked meals when there’s a possibility in the air that out there, on those tricky blue hard courts in breezy conditions, someone might just come back from a set and 5:1?

Don’t you wander haphazardly through everyday life when Grand Slams are on and for some reason, the only thing that matters is that you don’t miss a single point of the Casper Ruud and Jaume Munar match? What do you mean, I need to work? What do you mean, I need to shower and eat and sleep? Those are pastimes for fools. We here at Finite Jest watch the tennis instead.

Do not fret, fair weather fans, all the stars have survived the heat and the cold so far and we are still full of Alcarazs and Sinners, of Swiateks and Sabalenkas, of Gauffs and Djokovics. For all you other nerds, I know you will find someone to root for, no matter what.

Time is about to crunch. I, personally, can’t wait.

cold nights but warm smiles

Things that make me happy:

Ever since my mother, who never cared an ounce for any stars or celebrities, asked for a photo of Pat Rafter before I flew to Australia for the first time in my life I knew that Pat can have a certain effect on women. What I didn’t know was that when you talk to him in a room full of people, say, the player’s restaurant, eyes will follow your every move like old oil paintings in museums do. Maybe it’s an Australian thing, maybe it’s a Pat Rafter thing but when boyfriend enters stage right, the room stands still. What makes me happy about it is the fact that Pat himself is just a lad who wants to banter. What makes me even happier is the ad he is in for Uber Eats where he is on a raft (get it?) and Jim Courier is a courier (get it, get it?).

Here is the ad.

Things that make me unhappy:

I can’t believe that I went through 38 years of my life without knowing this song?! I blame all of you for not alerting me to it. Let me make this world class tune my entire personality for the next three weeks and see how you like me then. The song in question is Highwayman by The Highwaymen whose band members are Willie Nelson (!), Waylon Jennings (!!), Kris Kristofferson (!!!) and Johnny Cash (!!!!).

a tune for adventurers (like me)

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I hope you have watched all the tennis you wanted and more. Next week, Finite Jest will be sent out on Monday to account for both the men’s and the women’s final. Until then, be a good loser but be a terrible, obnoxious, cocky winner. That’s what I would do at least.

Yours truly, Andrea

Addendum: When I was just about to send this out 18-year-old Iva Jovic beat Jasmine Paolini. The reason I bring it up is because I called their match at the US Open when Jasmine won. The progress Iva has made in only a few months was absolutely astonishing to witness. This is what I love about our sport. Young people rule tennis and they remind us daily that the lavishness of feeling is beautiful for a certain period of time and that four months can be a lifetime in a teenager’s existence.