Last man standing ...

It started on Tuesday and carried on till Thursday. It was one of the greatest moments of Sport. Neither of  the men involved , though not unknown to tennis followers , was Rafa or Fed . It was  last man standing stuff , term usually associated to wrestling and not with beautiful lawns of Wimbledon , that flirted with fiction and reality. It was nothing spectacular but breathtaking and the  basic requirement of sport , commitment  to the fore. It was a match in which  two gladiators , Isner of USA and Mahut of France , giving it all , barely able to stand at the end of 11 hours , were inseparable , with  Isner edging it 70-68 in final set. Final set alone was fought for over seven hours easily eclipsing the previous longest tennis match.

Beauty of sport lies in the human factor which eventually makes mistakes that rival can take advantage of or a moment of brilliance or the factor called luck to intervene. But these two fought on for three days defying the laws of sport. It was also beautiful as it was devoid of controversies. This match was purely about will. Every person has a breaking point in him before he quits. It's the point at which his courage ends and contest doesn't seem worthy enough .  We give in Psychologically. But not these two. Those two wouldn't just quit.

What makes it more beautiful is that they practically played for nothing.  It was not a grand slam final played on Center court , just first round on court 18. The winner will not pocket money in millions of dollars .  There was no national pride involved. It  makes their performance even more astonishing. They were just playing for their personal pride . Professionals doing their job and giving everything. They were pushing their body for one more point .  It was more a show of human spirit than a match. Sport has been bought to disgrace by many issues , match fixing , racism , tampering , politics etc to mention a few. But matches like this are what brings back glory to it , irrespective of what  happens around. France football team showed no desire in their match against South Africa. They could have looked no farther than their fellow  country man , Mahut , for inspiration. It's a cruel world in which we live in . So one man had to be  second best.