I find myself often rooting against Nadal, and rooting for players I think will take out Nadal. But recently I realized what a waste this is.
I mainly root against him in slams because I don’t think he should go down as the greatest. I’d rather see those honors go to Federer or Djokovic. I’ve always thought they deserved it more. That’s what I told myself when he was facing Thiem yesterday/today, that it is good for Nadal to lose so that he can’t increase his resume with a slam and/or a win over Djokovic at the AO. But the look of disappointment on Nadal as he was leaving the scene made me question my motives in rooting for Thiem.
I will still hope Federer and Novak do well, but will stop rooting for Nadal to fail. I saw a video once with a guy talking about how he wants
the tallest building by going out and building the tallest building whereas others are satisfied with building the tallest building by tearing other peoples’ buildings down. That’s what I’ve been doing, trying to tear Nadal’s building down. Or at least, I’ve been watching three people build buildings and hoping that the construction would be halted on one of theirs.
Anyways, time to stop taking this all so seriously. I think a great former baseball player, Derek Jeter, once mentioned how a fan met him after a game someplace and started going over the game with him, and he then realized fans take the game very seriously, even more seriously than the players. There are better things to do than associating the greatness of my sports heroes with my own identity. Instead, I’ll just enjoy the fact that these legends all built themselves up to be what they are, and let them worry about the results as I admire from a distance.
