No. 1 ranking - a view from the top

The best address in tennis - No. 1 - may actually be two places. How it appears to a player may depend on whether he is looking at it from inside or from outside, writes NIRMAL SHEKAR.

THE STAGE was set for the coronation. All the props were in place. The whole world was watching with bated breath. The light from a bright yet benevolent sun bounced off the silverware on display, producing a surreal splash of psychedelic art, something of an exotic dance of blinding light and colour.

Everything was in place for the much-anticipated event at the National Tennis Centre in Melbourne nine years ago. Just one thing was missing. The Man-who-would-be-King was nowhere to be seen!

Where is he? What is he up to? Is he ill? Has he been kidnapped? Questions flew from all directions in the centre court press area like bazooka passing shots and razor sharp volleys earlier in the afternoon during the men's singles final of the 1991 Australian Open.

A lot of answers were on offer too. Someone said the man of the hour was ``crazy'', that he just jumped into his car and drove back to the hotel. Someone else volunteered information that the protagonist of the high drama was actually in the locker room, ``sick and throwing up.''

As it turned out, Boris Becker - from a plebian point of view - was both crazy and sick. Crazy because he was jogging on the lawn outside the stadium, all alone in the greatest moment of his career as a tennis player, and sick too of putting himself and the deepest of his emotions on display for the world to see time after time.

In the event, the itinerant philosopher of the tennis circuit chose to ignore the needs of his fellow men and bare his soul to less demanding creations of nature, such as the gum trees and pines on Batman Avenue in Melbourne.

Long after Becker had ended his communion with himself on the lawns, long after he lifted the trophy to celebrate his twin- triumph of beating Ivan Lendl in the final and nudging him out from the top in the rankings, one was left wondering what made the world champions, as Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the rich, different from you and I.Then again, how many of us can truthfully claim to know what it really takes to become a world beater, to become the No. 1 in any sport? How many of us are aware of the kind of sacrifices to be made on the slippery road in pursuit of the elusive dream of sporting excellence and ultimate fulfilment - the No. 1 ranking?

These thoughts engaged my mind yet again the other day when the dashing Russian Marat Safin became the youngest ever No. 1 in the history of the ATP rankings recently, at 20 years and 10 months. John McEnroe was 21 years and 15 days old when he first became No. 1 in 1980.

There has been a lot of confusion this year when the ATP's weekly rankings were really the points race rankings although entry to tournaments was determined on the old 52-week cycle rankings. And it was when he made the No. 1 spot in the old system that Safin make his way into the record books.

For the kind of form he has displayed during the second half of the year - not the least because of his stunning demolition of a jaded Pete Sampras in the U.S.Open final - Safin certainly deserves his brush with sporting history.

Yet, it is too early perhaps for the handsome young Russian to realise what it takes to stay at the top year after year, like Sampras did a record six years in a row. Things have happened too quickly for Safin but, in time, when pressures mount, he will understand what Sampras went through season after season.

If most of us constantly dream of becoming the best in whatever we are doing for a living, then it is left to a very few to savour the rewards of actually being celebrated as the best in the business.

But, unlike in many other areas of human activity, where the cream might well rise to the top but where there is no scientific merit ranking system, sport, especially an individual sport such as tennis, loves to put its practitioners in their place, so to say.

And the place every professional worth his graphite racquet strives to reach, or, at least dreams of reaching some time in his career, is the No.1 spot. It is another question whether the ambition is realistic when unheralded players dream of achieving what a Gustavo Kuerten or a Serena Williams may consider well within reach.

For, if life, and sport, were always driven only by realistic ambitions then not many will consider it worthwhile doing the things that we do, striving for goals that we crave!

Then again, talking of reality and fantasy, the best address in tennis may actually be two places - how it appears to you would depend on whether you are looking at it from inside or from outside.

From Ilie Nastase down to Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Boris Becker and Pete Sampras, as well as Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis, every player who has been a No. 1 for a meaningful period of time knows all about the difference between their perception of the ultimate feeling, the No. 1 experience, when they were dreaming of it on the way up, and the reality that seized them once they became owners of the coveted address.

Every player who's been No. 1 since computer rankings were introduced in men's tennis on August 23, 1973, would have had his own experience at the top but what every one of them will testify to is the fact that getting there is easier compared to the effort involved in staying there.

``All the looking behind your shoulder...it takes a heavy toll,'' John McEnroe, the dominant player in the first half of the 1980s, said in September 1985. ``Ultimately you start wondering if it's worth it. You start to think there's more to life than tennis, than being No.1.''

On the other hand, the top player also realises that once you have become No. 1, it is difficult to settle down elsewhere, to be contended with a lower ranking.

``To me it doesn't matter if I'm No. 2 or No. 100. If you are not No.1, you can be anything. Who cares?'' said Borg after losing his throne to McEnroe. As well as this - the realisation upon reaching the pinnacle that there is no place else you'd rather be despite the hardship involved in holding on to your hotseat - it must be stressed that the job has its extraordinary perks too.

The money and the adulation apart, the top player soon finds out that he/she is eligible for another kind of bonus too as the No. 1.

``Once you are No.1, you don't believe you can lose. You win a lot of games you shouldn't win simply because you are No. 1,'' Navratilova said ten years ago, looking back to her years as the game's best player.

This is very much true. When a player sets out to dominate his sport for a considerable period of time, he tends to acquire a sort of aura and awed opponents start gifting points.

What is more, this is especially so when sets and matches get to crucial stages. On many, many occasions, at Wimbledon and elsewhere, I have seen this principle in operation in the case of Sampras. While the great man himself would magically raise his game in crunch situations, the opponent, whatever his stature, would wilt just that much, sure in his own mind that when it comes to such tight situations he'd be no match to Sampras.

Leading by a set and ahead 6-4 in the second set tiebreak (two setpoints for a two sets to none lead), Goran Ivanisevic - the man with the most feared serve in the game - failed to put in a single first serve and then choked at the net as Sampras bravely swung at his weak second deliveries in the Wimbledon final in 1998.

And Pat Rafter himself did a fair imitation of the Ivanisevic act last July on a rain ravaged Sunday when he led by a set and was up 4-1 in the second set tiebreak, with two serves to come. One fatal error from Rafter was enough for Sampras to see light at the end of the tunnel and the great man was back in the set, in the match, and in the sprint to the tape that would see him become the most successful Grand Slam champion of all time.

Everybody who gets to be No. 1 may not have the overwhelming aura that Sampras had - he still does, at least on the famous lawns alone - but there is something to be said for the on and off court privileges that come with the top ranking, although this is small change compared to what the player sacrifices to hold on to the ranking season after season.

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