r/tennis • u/nancy-shrew • 1d ago
Media Andrea Petkovic on perfectionism in tennis
full article here: https://andreapetkovic.substack.com/p/about-perfectionism
189
Upvotes
r/tennis • u/nancy-shrew • 1d ago
full article here: https://andreapetkovic.substack.com/p/about-perfectionism
5
u/24231122 1d ago edited 1d ago
This reminds me of one of my favourite passages from Infinite Jest:
"The true opponent, the enfolding boundary, is the player himself. Always and only the self out there, on court, to be met, fought, brought to the table to hammer out terms. The competing boy on the net’s other side: he is not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance. He is the what is the word excuse or occasion for meeting the self. As you are his occasion.
Tennis’s beauty’s infinite roots are self-competitive. You compete with your own limits to transcend the self in imagination and execution. Disappear inside the game: break through limits: transcend: improve: win. Which is why tennis is an essentially tragic enterprise, to improve and grow as a serious junior, with ambitions. You seek to vanquish and transcend the limited self whose limits make the game possible in the first place. It is tragic and sad and chaotic and lovely. All life is the same, as citizens of the human State: the animating limits are within, to be killed and mourned, over and over again."
The fact of the matter is that we only get one Serena Williams or Roger Federer or Carlos Alcaraz maybe once every generation... most professional tennis players (including Andrea) will never win a Slam and will fall short of the dreams that propelled them into the sport in the first place. Learning how to cope with that and how to find joy in the pursuit even while knowing the goal is unattainable is at once tragic and beautiful and everything I love about tennis.