Tennis is an art, about human choice, limitation, and freedom | 5Y View
This mastery is achieved through professional athletes' relentless, repetitive practice.
Today's article is excerpted from David Foster Wallace's book String Theory, which collects five essays on tennis written between 1991 and 2006. In it, Wallace recalls the spatial awareness of his own teenage tennis, writes about semi-divine masters like Federer, and explores the concentration, technical excellence, and professionalism of elite players.
The third essay has a famously long title: "Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness." Written for Esquire in 1996, it profiles Michael Joyce, then a top-100 tennis player.
Wallace describes how the depth of a tennis shot is determined by the combined effect of the ball's weight as it crosses the net, its speed, and its spin — and how the ball's weight at that moment is itself determined by the player's body position, grip, backswing amplitude, racket face angle, and the three-dimensional coordinates where the ball strikes the strings during the swing. These factors are interwoven and continuous; such calculations can only be performed by a kind of hyperactive holistic thinking. True tennis, in this sense, is an art.
This artistry is achieved through the cyclical application of professional athletes. They typically set their goals early in life and subsequently attain an ascetic focus — a subordination of other features of human existence to particular talents and aims. We've excerpted portions that we hope will resonate with you:
Source: String Theory
By David Foster Wallace
Translated by Lin Xiaoxiao
Excerpted from the third essay, "Tennis Player Michael Joyce's Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff about Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness"
I think tennis is the most beautiful sport in the world, but also the cruelest. You need body control, coordination between your eyes and hands, quick movements and quick ball speed, abundant stamina, and then there's what we call "guts" — you have to keep reminding yourself to stay sharp, and sometimes to let yourself relax a little. Beyond all this, the sport requires intelligence. In a high-level match, even a single return in a rally involves nightmarish mechanical variations. Assume the net is 0.9 meters high (at center), both players are standing in fixed positions (not entirely realistic), and the power of a groundstroke is determined by its angle, depth, speed, and spin. And each of these determining factors is itself determined by other variables: for instance, the depth of a groundstroke is determined by the combined effect of the ball's weight as it crosses the net, its speed, and its spin, while the ball's weight as it crosses the net is determined by the player's body position, grip, backswing amplitude, racket face angle, and the three-dimensional coordinates produced when the ball strikes the strings during the swing — and so on. All these determinants and variables are interwoven and continuous, and on top of this you must calculate your opponent's position, the direction of their shot, and the trajectory of the incoming ball. No existing CPU could calculate the possible variations of any single ball in a rally — it would make the CPU's surface smoke. This kind of calculative thinking belongs to a hyperactive holistic thinking that can only be done unconsciously; that is, it must be applied cyclically to reach the point where all variables are calculated while being controlled unconsciously. In other words, true tennis is an art.
If you have even the slightest experience playing tennis, you'll sense how difficult it is to play this sport well. I suspect you have no idea how hard it is to play well. I know I didn't. And television cannot convey the charm of truly top players — for example, the sheer force with which they hit the ball, their control, tactical application, and artistry. I've watched Michael Joyce play up close several times, from about 1.8 meters away, separated only by a chain-link fence. When running at full speed, this man can make a tennis ball cross a roughly 1-meter-high net at maximum speed, travel about 24 meters, and land hard in an area 30 centimeters wide. He does this 90% of the time during a match. And he's only ranked 79th in the world, still having to play qualifying in Montreal.
The artistry of sport not only inspires people's interest in watching professional tennis, but is required by professional competition itself — it's what draws the top-100 players here, keeps them here, and allows them to surpass opponents who have worked just as hard.
Bismarck wrote a satirical poem about diplomacy and sausage, and Americans' view of professional sports can be expressed in the same vein. We worship athletic perfection, competitive victory. We don't just watch sports, we pay for them. We spend large sums to watch truly great matchups, treat players as stars, revere them, even buy products or services they endorse.
But we are unwilling to accept the sacrifices a professional athlete makes when focusing on something. Oh, we pay lip service to these costs — we cite endless clichés about how lonely the road to Olympic fame is, how football is accompanied by injuries and painkillers, how athletes must rise early, train, diet, live relatively dull lives, and isolate themselves before competitions. But what we truly cannot accept is this: that people with basketball talent mostly haven't spent many years in school, that sprinters often keep company with performance-enhancing drugs, that defensive linemen take bovine growth hormone until they collapse or break down. We tend not to consider the vacuous, crude things athletes say after matches, or rather, we cannot imagine how impoverished a person's inner life must be to think as great athletes do. Note the close observation and portrayal of professional athletes as having colorful lives — interests, activities, good deeds, and values beyond sport. We overlook the obvious: the effort of professional athletes to lead rich lives is itself farcical. It's farcical because today's top athletes set their goals early in life and concentrate all their energy on achieving them. This is an ascetic focus. It is the subordination of other features of human existence to particular talents and goals. The identification with living in a childlike world is very serious and utterly trivial.
Apart from qualifying, I've never heard of a professional playing two matches in one day. Michael Joyce's second round of qualifying began at 7:30 PM on Saturday. His opponent was an Austrian named Julian Knowle, a gaunt, tall player with Kafkaesque pointed ears. Knowle used a two-handed grip regardless of which half of the court he was on, and would smash his racket when in a bad mood. The match was played on the Grandstand Court at Jarry Stadium, a venue that resembled a theater more than a tennis court, since seating and stands were only on the east side. But the Grandstand felt intimate: the box seats were so close you could see the acne on Joyce's face or the bead-like sweat on Mr. Knowle's forehead. It wasn't particularly hot at night, but it was humid, insects circled around them, and high-powered lights diffracted into magical rainbows around them. The Grandstand held about 1,500 spectators, but only four were in the stands tonight. Michael Joyce dispatched Julian with almost contemptuous ease, while the latter would board a red-eye flight at 1:30 AM to Poznań, Poland for a secondary clay tournament.
Throughout the afternoon matches, Joyce wore a white Fila T-shirt with differently colored sleeves. His sleeves bore patches reading "Iron Wrist." Joyce earned $1,000 each time he wore such patches. Beyond this, he wore a cap — almost all qualifying players wore caps in the afternoon sun. For tonight's match, Joyce wore a Jim Courier-endorsed Fila pinstripe T-shirt, one sleeve red, the other blue. The patch was sewn on the blue sleeve. He had a red bandana tied around his head, and when he sweated in the humid air, his face turned the same color as this bandana. I found it hard not to like his outfit. Julian Knowle wore a shirt with an abstract design, the brand unreadable. Knowle had long hair piled high on his head, as tall as Beavis's, yet when he sweated, this hairstyle remained completely intact and unified. Knowle's sleeves were also different colors. Apparently this look was very popular among qualifying players this year: asymmetrical sleeves.
The match between Joyce and Knowle lasted a little over an hour. It dragged on because Knowle broke his racket and went to get it repaired. Also, he wandered in circles, muttering curses at himself in High German dialect. Nevertheless, Knowle's outbursts of rage struck me as somewhat theatrical, insincere, because he lost points not through any unforgivable errors. For example, there was one telling point in the match: it was the sixth game, 15-30, with the score 1-4 in sets. Knowle hit a 177 km/h cross-court shot to Joyce's forehand side; Joyce returned with a cross-court flat shot; Knowle had to stretch and hurriedly hit a forehand, since the ball was difficult to take with a two-handed forehand. Knowle hit a very fine forehand return, spinning heavily, landing a bit short, about a meter from the service line. Then he reversed direction, returning to the center of the baseline, ready for the next shot. Joyce responded to the situation, moving forward to meet the ball, and after it bounced, hitting it on the rise with a flatter, harder backhand to exactly the same spot as the previous shot — right where Knowle had just turned away from. Thus Knowle was forced to turn back around, returning to his original position. Then he barely reached the ball with his racket, returning it weakly, while Joyce was already waiting at the net and easily put away the volley for the point. The four spectators applauded. Knowle spun his racket toward the blood-red tarp, while Joyce walked expressionlessly back to the center of the baseline, ready for Knowle's serve after he returned to the court. Compared to Brakus in the first round, Knowle had more firepower: his groundstrokes were astonishing, and if he had enough time to prepare and adjust his strategy, his returns could be lethal. But this time, Joyce intercepted the ball. Joyce later told me he hadn't exerted himself much in this match, nor had he needed to. He never hit spectacular winners, but he never made unnecessary errors either; each of his groundstrokes made the somewhat clumsy Knowle take large strides, disrupting his timing and mood for the entire match. Knowle could not solve or respond to this strategy, was helpless against it. This perhaps explains Joyce's equanimity about the Montreal qualifying: barring minor injuries or neurological disorders, players like Austria's Julian Knowle were simply not in his league — Joyce was on a completely different level from these qualifying players.
The idea that competitors' levels vary so dramatically — that the differences are so pronounced that matches between different players are entirely different categories of event — may seem strange to you, even difficult to accept. But I have extensive match experience, so I know it's true. I once played against someone whose style was completely different from mine and who was several levels above me; I trembled, knowing clearly that defeating them, "taking them down," was nearly impossible. Knowle's technique was fully professional, but compared to Michael Joyce, he was simply not in the same category; Joyce had already transcended Knowle's limits. I felt I could play a set with Julian Knowle on the court. He might beat me, might even destroy me, but running around a 24-by-8-meter court as he did wouldn't be difficult for me. But if I were to play Joyce — even to exchange a few shots with him (a fantasy I entertained on the flight to Montreal), or to rally with this hot young American prospect — the idea would strike me as absurd, even somewhat presumptuous. During tonight's match, I decided not to tell Joyce that I had played competitive tennis, and quite seriously, with (in my view) decent results. This made me very sad.
On Sunday, the second day of qualifying, it rained. It rained all day. The umpire in the high chair decided that if the rain intensified, play would be postponed. In the second round, the match between the world No. 219 and No. 345 was interrupted four times, taking the entire day to complete. Rain always makes one think of baseball. Players quickly retreated to the players' rest tent, but couldn't leave the grounds because the rain might stop at any moment; they could only sit there, constantly prepared for play to resume. Spectators had to stay put, in the stands, where umbrellas would suddenly mushroom open. The Quebec commentators cursed the weather in French from the broadcast booth, then pulled out newspapers or handheld gaming devices, or told each other stories of romantic conquests. Unfortunately, my French was good enough to confirm that their stories were truly boring.
After the rain stopped, if it didn't resume shortly, the umpire would raise a finger. Instantly, the outdoor stadium would erupt with busy activity: ball boys, linespeople all in chaos, all assuming the role of court cleaners. From somewhere appeared a batch of strangely shaped, apparently expensive machines that immediately went to work: enormous gas-powered rollers traversing the court, pounding waterlogged spots and splashing out the water; then a row of rubber squeegees sweeping the court surface, missing not an inch; then came the handheld blowers — not leaf-blower types, but with shoulder straps and wand-like attachments — to deal with stubborn damp spots on the drying court.
The subject of this article is Michael Joyce and the untelevised reality of the tour, not me. But much of it is interwoven with my own experience at the Canadian Open, and as a failed player, I feel it's necessary to spend a moment clarifying the difference between myself and these players. I played tennis when young, competed in all the Midwest junior tournaments. Many of my best friends were also tennis players; we all achieved decent results in our respective regions. We all considered ourselves good players. The years with tennis were profoundly important to us — we sacrificed much time and freedom in our youth for competition, and this experience easily became a crucial part of our self-identity and sense of self-worth. Another 14-year-old Midwestern prospect and I both recognized that our upward limits were finite; we knew there were national-level tournaments, and that level would inevitably produce top players and champions. But the level of play there, the difficulty, was far beyond anything we could imagine, seeming almost unreal — we local prospects truly could not conceive what players better than us at our age looked like.
A child's world is always small. If I had played better then, actually won the regional championship, I would have qualified for national tour events, and thus had the chance to meet other 14-year-olds from across America, to witness levels I couldn't imagine.
My playing style when young was basically a typical defensive type, using what Martin Amis called "cowardly regression." I didn't hit hard, but rarely made unforced errors. I was quick, generally just returning the ball to my opponent's court, grinding until they broke down, committed unforced errors, or hit short, sloppy balls I could put away. This may not seem honorable, even dull, yet it remains vivid in retrospect. I didn't find it boring, and contrary to what you might expect, it was highly effective (at least at the level I competed). Typically, a 12-year-old tennis player would miss four or five balls (mostly from impatience, emotional volatility). By 16, good players sustained rallies of seven or eight shots before erring. By college, the level remained similar (at least in the third-year division): opponents were stronger than junior players, but didn't show significantly greater consistency; if I could sustain seven or eight shots, I could still exploit their errors to win.
I still play now, less competitively, but still take it seriously. I admit that deep down, I still consider myself a very good tennis player, difficult to beat. Before coming to Montreal, I had watched many professional matches on television, but as mentioned, these broadcasts poorly convey an accurate impression of what makes excellent players excellent. Thus I must also admit that upon arriving in Montreal, I still harbored a subconscious hope that these professionals — at least the obscure non-star players — were not that much better than me. I'm not saying this to show how delusional I was. I could no longer compete at this age; in 1991 I severely sprained my ankle, and being too lazy to fully rehabilitate it, and being addicted to nicotine (and worse), all made my physical condition incomparable to uninjured professionals. But on television (where I watched while eating junk food and smoking), I saw professionals struggling mightily against opponents, yet hitting balls much slower than mine. In truth, I began my first-ever professional tournament journey with a pathetic, fabricated complacency, looking down my nose at everyone. I had watched qualifying, but not yet the main draw — this must be noted. I had only watched matches on the grounds of this Canadian Open featuring world-ranked players around the 64th position, and during these viewings I experienced a joy mixed with surprise and sadness. I felt suddenly elevated. I had never before watched matches between low-ranked professionals.
Even if I employed my youthful style of cowardice taken to the extreme, I would still be no match for these players. For one thing, professionals tolerate no unforced errors, or rather, they strive with all their might to avoid them, so among seven points, they absolutely would not commit more than four unforced errors. Thus I could not win this way. Additionally, if an incoming ball was not deep or fast enough, they would resolutely counterattack fatally. Beyond this, their own shots landed very deep and fast, so that even if you could return the first, the second, you couldn't return the third. For me, competing on the same court as these obscure yet formidable players would be meaningless. For you too. This involves not just talent and practice, but something else.
[
](http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzkwMDI2ODE0OQ==&mid=2247497632&idx=1&sn=a9cbe839d85c75339f70d52282be05f4&chksm=c0441ebaf73397aca4c052a99cb91a9222bc828c2287cb4e72c8c9563ececdc30d5fa4f45684&scene=21#wechat_redirect)[
](http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzkwMDI2ODE0OQ==&mid=2247501336&idx=1&sn=a5c98700ed263836d84d88a6b4ebb8a3&chksm=c0442f02f733a61458daa43aa43f5e6e4d7e42fff363abbdc88778a312f9f0ce340f178ac3d4&scene=21#wechat_redirect) [
5Y Capital seeks out, supports, and inspires solitary entrepreneurs, providing them with support from the spiritual to all operational aspects. We believe that if the you whom others see as crazy begins to be believed in, the world will become a different place.
BEIJING·SHANGHAI·SHENZHEN·HONGKONG
