Time to fall back on sports, now time comes to write something about players who made game grander and made me look forward to their jalwa on and off the court.
Oh list is long (should be for a sports freak like me). When I was born, my parents had
bought a wallpaper of star all rounder Ian Botham and when I showed first sign of identifying folks around me, Bothy became one of us . But Bothy though became my first connection to sports action, He wasn’t the one for whom I glued to my Idiot box. First and foremost name that comes to mind is of a German fraulin who made tennis a gorgeous game. One who defeated might Navratilova at Wimbledon and let me swoon over her at tender age of seven, whoa sound unbelievable. She was and till day remains my favorite sports person. She has it all beauty, brains, courage and never say die spirit. One Miss Novotna came to know of her such spirit hard way on a July day at Wimbledon in 1993. Yeah, fraulin is Steffi Graf... A lady who let many hearts go flutter with every move of hers. Her forehand was just awesome, wish she could have been blessed with a wonderful backhand as well say la Henin. And she could have been better at red courts of Paris where she lost to Sanchez quite many times. She could not beat Margret Court’s record haul of 23 major singles and that is something I bet must rankle her even today.
1988 was her dream year, I had not switched to tennis big time then and she had completed a golden slam (4 majors and to cap it off Olympic gold medal in a single year).
In French open she had destroyed Natasha Zareeva 6-0 6-0 in final something which shows at that time she was in her own league. There she was, always tossing ball very high in air as to bring a whiff of rain with it when it kissed back the earth. And poor opponent survived for another split of second (ah ball has to still land at earth) but then diva was just delaying the inevitable for her mere mortal opponents. She mostly handed them a merciful kill at net. No ifs and but she used to waltz at court and put her opponents past their agony quickly. Hmm guess it’s sounding more of an obituary kind of thing , so let’s stop here . Saw her playing against Davenport at hollowed courts of Wimbledon , what eventually turned out to be her last hurrah. God was American on that day, lady was vanquished by Davenport and I surfed the channels to hear of Indian conquest of Tiger Hill by Indian Jawans. So the day could have been just perfect but Davenport chose otherwise. Tennis would never be same without smiling fraulin.
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