The beauty of sport

By Jonathan Fisher, January 25th, 2009

Like countless other Australians over the last couple of weeks, I've been glued to the Australian Open tennis, particularly the plight of Jelena Dokic. I watched as she fought valiantly in a match that only could be described as epic against the spirited Russian Alisa Kleybanova, who rose above the bias of the crowd and the tenacity of Dokic to give us a match worthy of the canon of the "Grand Slam".

I was less excited by the outcome of the match than I was by the spirit and bravery of Dokic herself. Here is a girl who reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open at an absurdly young age eight years ago, and in the time since has had her personal problems (problems out of her control) aired out in public and has seen her standing in her profession reduced to tatters. She was essentially forced to leave her adopted country (she was born in war-torn Yugoslavia), a country that brought her success and popularity at an impossibly young age, in exchange for relative obscurity and snarky comments about her bizarre and apparently psychotic father. In the previous two years she has found the strength to sever ties with her father and to claw her way from a ranking of 600+ back into stature in a game that promised so much eight years ago, but did not eventuate.

Dokic played out of her skin in tonight's fourth round match. More than that, she behaved like a champion. She was completely unflappable, especially when the completion of the task ahead of her seemed miles in the distance. Even when injury appeared to threaten her chances late in the third set, she picked herself up, dusted herself off, and went about the business of remaking the match, and her career. Her quiet dignity and unflustered air is in stark contrast to the histrionics of some of our other national tennis heroes. I get the sense that underneath Dokic's dignified, mature and calm air is a character that has been borne and refined out of necessity in dealing with the hardships of the last eight years.

I must say that watching Dokic well with tears after each of her victories during this tournament has moved me, it really has. Seeing those crowds of people get behind her and cheer at her success and courage, on and off the court, was a pretty good feeling, too. I felt the tingling of compassion and empathy that last reared its head during the final scene of Slumdog Millionaire. There are rare occasions in sport when real-life adversity spills over onto the playing field, and a transcendence occurs. It becomes more than 'just a game'. I think you'll notice that I haven't given away whether Dokic won her fourth round match or not. This is one of those moments in sport in which the sport is the MacGuffin, the vehicle that distracts us from what is really at stake. It is so much more than a game.