bertrevert
03-24-2005, 02:06 AM
Tennis, the professional variety, is surely held out as that great lottery in the sky.
The players who make it up there are indeed just normal, hitting balls, nothing more.
But the money at the top is so out of proportion to what it is that they do and what it is that it means in the world, that it is surely represents the great giddy lottery in the sky.
Exciting, physical, gladiatorial, tennis is the modern-day agon - agonist versus agonist, it’s a battle. Tennis is this match of opponents. But beyond what goes on court let’s be honest tennis is - bankrolled. Tennis survives off the cream of sponsors, some surplus profit that can be assigned in an advertising way to these contests. That’s great. But to get an idea what that means we only have to go past the top ten, and then there’s not much for the (so-called) no-ones.
At any one moment it is far better for thousands of hopefuls to keep hitting balls with the view that their moment might come. All I can imagine is that that doesn’t happen usually. It must be real tough.
I’d better add that in no way have I experienced the tour. All I can say is that it must be full of hopefuls and that sometimes that tennis schedule must seem like a great big tennis wheel-of-fortune in the sky.
The players who make it up there are indeed just normal, hitting balls, nothing more.
But the money at the top is so out of proportion to what it is that they do and what it is that it means in the world, that it is surely represents the great giddy lottery in the sky.
Exciting, physical, gladiatorial, tennis is the modern-day agon - agonist versus agonist, it’s a battle. Tennis is this match of opponents. But beyond what goes on court let’s be honest tennis is - bankrolled. Tennis survives off the cream of sponsors, some surplus profit that can be assigned in an advertising way to these contests. That’s great. But to get an idea what that means we only have to go past the top ten, and then there’s not much for the (so-called) no-ones.
At any one moment it is far better for thousands of hopefuls to keep hitting balls with the view that their moment might come. All I can imagine is that that doesn’t happen usually. It must be real tough.
I’d better add that in no way have I experienced the tour. All I can say is that it must be full of hopefuls and that sometimes that tennis schedule must seem like a great big tennis wheel-of-fortune in the sky.