“Always keep in mind that we are in the world of tennis. 🌍🎾 Move away from appearances (the outcome) and focus on the path to follow (the process) to reach the goal: give your best to be satisfied and fulfilled within yourself.”
Fate is ironic.
Unfortunately, you only realize this when the match is over, when you see that, despite all your efforts, it wasn’t enough to escape the sort of limbo you found yourself in at the end of every “damned” point you needed to win but didn’t—perhaps due to a bad bounce or an unpredictable net cord. You tried to keep your cool, waiting for the right moment to strike back. But nothing. The moment didn’t come, and you must accept the defeat, undeserved as it may be, dictated by fate.
At this point, you might even feel like you’ve been made fun of…😓
Fate, however, is also the same agent that unexpectedly rewards you in moments when your strength and commitment are at their lowest.
So, there is no rule that decides that the one who tries harder wins and the one who tries less loses. Even though, in general, it should be that way. “Trying hard” means giving your best, physically and mentally, quantitatively, but also qualitatively, with regard to the psychic resources and energies employed to discern situations with clarity and manage them appropriately.
Commitment is every day, every hour, every minute in every match and/or training session, in every point, ball after ball. Without thinking it’s wasted time. Without expecting to deserve a reward in return… maybe victory! 🏆
And probably, when you’re not looking for it, when you’re relaxed, focused on the right objectives and working towards them, it will come… it will come. You don’t know in what form or aspect, you don’t know how, but it will come.
“Victory” is an intrinsic value, an entirely internal matter, a state of fulfillment, which may not even coincide with a positive concrete outcome like winning a match. It’s a sense of dominance over your destiny. It’s choosing to be consistent until the end, in everything you do; to step onto the court without fear, even under adverse internal (physical, mental, emotional) and external (environmental, climatic…) conditions, which will likely lead you to defeat.
It’s the ability to recognize that behind defeat, there’s something greater: the satisfaction with your work, constant and full of sacrifices, that allowed you to be there, at that moment, fighting for your self-affirmation, demonstrating your presence in the world.
Sport, understood as spontaneous and not opportunistic sacrifice, underlies the highest concept of victory as the “victory of existence.” The “winner” is the one who dismisses the seemingly trivial conclusions that lead ordinary people to attribute victory or defeat to those who “bring home” or not a match, to feel free from transient ties and embrace broader meanings that define them as such by constitution and not by the results achieved.
The winner is the one who follows unwaveringly, according to their own logic, a personal line of action, with analytical clarity and without looking back.
The “real match” begins precisely when, tired from the journey, you are forced to keep walking, to go beyond your strength, because the goal is still out of sight.
The skill and strength of spirit of the “real player” lie in not thinking about counting the steps but in focusing and trying to benefit from each step taken the moment you place your foot forward; and in having a clear sense of direction rather than the destination, because the destination may move closer or farther away, but it’s the route (the path) that leads you to it, and it’s the true source of satisfaction, the reward itself for your efforts.
When you reach a goal and think about the path you took to achieve it, the goal you just conquered suddenly holds less value than when it was far off and you dreamed of it.
And so, the very goal you fought for becomes the beginning of a new journey toward a new conquest. The journey lasts a lifetime. The goal vanishes the moment you reach it; and then, a new and different one emerges.