Watching the Wimbledon women’s final on Saturday – or, more accurately, watching the trophy ceremony – I was reminded of the similarities between tennis and writing. The player holding the trophy, Iga Świątek, was having, until that afternoon, a disappointing year, with not a single tournament win. Her ranking had dropped from #2 to #8. But in less than an hour, as the commentator Mary Jo Fernandez noted, all those losses disappeared in the light of this great triumph.
It's the same in writing. You send out a manuscript – or a story, or an essay – and one acceptance wipes out all the rejections that preceded it. The difference between the two fields is that in sports, talent is always rewarded – talent plus hard work and dedication – while in writing it’s popularity that reigns supreme. Talent often plays a role, but brilliance – the game-changer (literally) on the playing field – frequently goes unappreciated on the page.
I’m always looking for ways to promote my book – if not me, who? – so yesterday I posted this on social media:
Seeking relief from the heat? My memoir will transport you to winter in northern Greece; Providence, Rhode Island; and – most chillingly – Warsaw, Poland.
Made it back to physical therapy yesterday for my knee – whose pain had disappeared in the interim – and accidentally kicked myself in the shin, drawing blood. I felt like the character in the Peter De Vries novel who visits Lourdes and catches a cold.
In the latest Spectator, Charles Moore remembers a journalist, Sandy Gall, who died at the age of 97: “He was a dear man,” Moore writes, “neither broken by the horrors of war, nor puffed up by his courage in the face of them – a true reporter.”
I haven’t been getting out much, which means I’ve spent a lot of time in front of the TV. Of the four major tennis championships, Wimbledon is the most aesthetically pleasing to watch – players in white running atop perfectly manicured grass – as well as being the most prestigious. At least that’s what the players – Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz – have said in interviews.
But early yesterday afternoon, I could find it nowhere on my television. Carlos Alcaraz, one of the most brilliant shotmakers in the history of the game, was playing Andrey Rublev – I knew from checking the scores on my phone – and Nicolas Jarry was battling Cam Norrie, the last British man still in the tournament. Two matches that, you would think, were worthy of coverage. There was also a women’s match – possibly two – going on at the same time. But the two networks with rights to the tournament, ABC and ESPN, were showing, respectively, an old Jack Hanna show about animals and a cornhole tournament. On a Sunday afternoon. ABC eventually broadcast the tennis, at 3 pm, but for a brief time – actually, for tennis fans, not so brief – ESPN gave cornhole precedence over Wimbledon.
I stand by what I said about the 4th of July. I'm like those people who, around the middle of December, say they're not in the mood for Christmas.