In praise of sore losers
Forget about repackaging disappointment into a ‘learning journey’ – we should accept the fact that defeat hurts.
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Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (right) with Coco Gauff of the United States after Gauff won the US Open women's final on Sept 9.
PHOTO: AFP
Jo Ellison
Pity poor Aryna Sabalenka, beaten in the final of the US Open by teen sensation Coco Gauff. Behind-the-scenes footage published earlier shows the 25-year-old Belarusian calmly processing her defeat: standing in a training room, she removes her tennis racket from her bag, then thrashes it against the floor repeatedly and chucks it in the bin.
The clip, no more than 30 seconds long, is the perfect distillation of a loser’s rage; combining a veneer of quiet professionalism (she does it all in seeming silence) with the daftness of a toddler’s ire. The clip immediately went viral, an excruciating glimpse into the psyche of an elite sportsperson in an arena in which defeat is more usually accompanied, in public at least, by a demure acceptance of one’s inferiority and a smile. That Sabalenka harboured such a basic frustration about her defeat in a final in which she saw her one-set lead snatched away revealed her as human after all.