League of champions

It’s not every day the world’s oldest tennis tournament lets you peek behind the curtain to see how the magic is made.

- ROCHELLE PINTO

Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. In the heat of a match, players look like lunatics in a public square, ranting and swearing,” Andre Agassi admits in his memoir, Open. “Why? Because tennis is so damned lonely.” As the boisterous rumble of the crowd sitting around Wimbledon’s Centre Court dissipates into an almost-black hole of silence, punctured only by the primal grunts of reigning champion Carlos Alcaraz (incidentally, the loudest grunter in men’s tennis according to a 2023 study), I finally understand what Agassi means.

Being arguably the least coordinated sportsperson on the planet, I’ve always been fascinated by people who dedicate their lives to a single pursuit despite great physical pain and personal sacrifice. Their ability to push past failure, self-doubt and often, the loud boos of an antagonistic crowd. Where does that well of resilience come from and could they perhaps bottle some of it for the rest of us?