Have to disagree. In the Wimbledon final Federer was better on pretty much every stat. If Djokovic won because he was better why did he win so many less points?? The fact is Djokovic was better under pressure. It's easy to say every point is played the same but that's not the case. Players are not robots. It's very natural to tighten up on critical points. It's also why Djokovic won more points on each of the tiebreaks and didn't make unforced errors despite Federer winning more points overall. Pressure matters.
Same applies for cricket. Every ball may be equally relevant but players don't see it that way and that makes all the difference.
I'm not sure I follow your point. Djokovic and Federer are within a one or two ranks of each other. Djokovic is as dominant as Federer over his career. One off results which go the other way are flukes.
Fucking hell. Just lost a long ass comment to chutyapa of signing in. Fuck substack.
But to round up my previous thoughts - I find narrative in sport very fascinating, and it has led me to ask why do we need narrative at all? And I think in sports, just like in life, narrative is this imperfect, imprecise and sometimes completely false structure that we impose on something that is far more chaotic, random and difficult to make sense of. Indeed, sports is given to narrativising because it offers winners and losers, something that life doesn't provide with the same level of clarity and distinction. I would argue that were it not for narrative, sports would not exist the way they do as they offer no function to human society beyond providing entertainment. And they are entertaining because they seem/are forced to conform to narratives, even when as you show above, narratives aren't describing the sport correctly.
I think familiar structures are comforting. Strangeness or unfamiliarity is disconcerting. It is why familiar narratives are popular and therefore remain familiar. I tend to think that competition and story telling are distinct structures, and both are entertaining.
Have to disagree. In the Wimbledon final Federer was better on pretty much every stat. If Djokovic won because he was better why did he win so many less points?? The fact is Djokovic was better under pressure. It's easy to say every point is played the same but that's not the case. Players are not robots. It's very natural to tighten up on critical points. It's also why Djokovic won more points on each of the tiebreaks and didn't make unforced errors despite Federer winning more points overall. Pressure matters.
Same applies for cricket. Every ball may be equally relevant but players don't see it that way and that makes all the difference.
I'm not sure I follow your point. Djokovic and Federer are within a one or two ranks of each other. Djokovic is as dominant as Federer over his career. One off results which go the other way are flukes.
Fucking hell. Just lost a long ass comment to chutyapa of signing in. Fuck substack.
But to round up my previous thoughts - I find narrative in sport very fascinating, and it has led me to ask why do we need narrative at all? And I think in sports, just like in life, narrative is this imperfect, imprecise and sometimes completely false structure that we impose on something that is far more chaotic, random and difficult to make sense of. Indeed, sports is given to narrativising because it offers winners and losers, something that life doesn't provide with the same level of clarity and distinction. I would argue that were it not for narrative, sports would not exist the way they do as they offer no function to human society beyond providing entertainment. And they are entertaining because they seem/are forced to conform to narratives, even when as you show above, narratives aren't describing the sport correctly.
I think familiar structures are comforting. Strangeness or unfamiliarity is disconcerting. It is why familiar narratives are popular and therefore remain familiar. I tend to think that competition and story telling are distinct structures, and both are entertaining.