I am ready to tell you my secret now. It’s been gnawing at me for a while, knowing that I possess this bizarre faculty to influence events that are occurring in places a few thousand miles away from me and not being able to tell anyone.
I’m sure Peter Parker must have felt the urge every single day to climb his college rooftop and scream at the top of his lungs, “Listen up, dumbos!! I am Spiderman!!!”. I can empathize with that. But with great responsibility comes great power and so we all just hold our secrets, quietly performing our miracles in the background without worrying about who gets the credit.
Any lay tennis enthusiast will only know that Federer won the third round. And has done far better at Wimbledon than the form book indicated. Most Federer fans, in their utter naivety, will probably attribute it to various factors like the great man’s ability to improve as the tournament goes or about grass being his favorite surface. Little do they know…
Even seasoned sports writers will dissect the match, his game and that of his opponent. The sad thing is my contribution in the whole episode is not going to be recognized by anyone – not even my near and dear ones.
Take the match against Cam Norrie for instance. For the first two sets, I sat cross legged all through on my bed, not moving an inch, forcing myself to have an ever so small sip of water almost metronomically during every break, with my mobile phone face down to my left and at a right angle to my A/C remote and generally did all the other things that I knew would send the right energy to Centre Court. And the results were plain enough for all to see : 6-4, 6-4. That’s when I had a stutter. A phone call I could not ignore, followed by a sit down dinner at the family table. I pleaded, tried to make my family understand that I had to be on the bed for the critical third set but to no avail. Inevitably, a third set loss. The British fans were getting a little delirious and I could not help feeling a little sorry for them at the beginning of the fourth set as I settled back on my bed after dinner. Slam dunk. 6-4 in the fourth, game, set and match.
But before you run away with some simplistic take-out, let me tell you more. The sitting on the bed thing channelized the Chi for the fourth round only. It had to be on the bed, in my room, not in any other room. In his first round match against Mannarino, I’d got it horribly wrong. I started out by watching the match on my mobile (on silent!) as I was on a video call on my laptop and the video was on. The match was heading downhill till luckily the call finished and I was able to execute my game plan. I moved to the living room first. When that didn’t work, I changed my position on the sofa, then stood for about ten minutes in the balcony and finally out of desperation, in the fourth set, I moved to my daughter’s room. That changed the complexion of the game, to the point where Mannarino actually had a fall and had to forfeit the match. OK, maybe I went a little overboard that day, but I believe in competing hard and tennis is a tough sport. Intuition led me to watch round 2 in my son’s room and I was bang on. Smooth!! That led me back to my room for round 3. Now that he has made it to the final 16, I have to figure out the strategy for Monday…
It is not just about the room or the position, sometimes even random things like working on a presentation helps in generating positive outcomes. PPT has largely been a positive factor in my life. Not at work, I mean at home when trying to influence a match. Word and Excel though, I avoid. Empirically I’ve found them to be quite disruptive and harbingers of bad energy. You’ll never believe this one - through sheer trial and error, I have established that I can unfailingly change the course of the match when I use this contraption that I have for inhaling steam. I just switch it on, inhale the steam for a few minutes, all the while watching the match from above the rim. It actually produced dramatic results during the French Open – every single time I felt Federer was going flat, I’d do a small number with the device and hey – our man gets a fresh burst of energy. I actually felt very let down by Fed’s exit from the French Open. By the 3rd round, I was ready, I had perfected my strategies, prepared for all contingencies and then the man just quits!! Usually, the match results are enough gratification for me but considering that I get no recognition and do this out of sheer altruism, the least one would expect is for Fed to at least put up a fight and show up for work, allowing me to do my thing…
By now you would have gleaned that the approach has to account for the tournament, the round, the opponent and so on – multiple and complex factors to contend with and I confess I do sometimes get it wrong. Like in Dubai. As for Geneva, I can only say that I was traveling and though I tried to watch it on my mobile and tried a few things like viewing with earphones, then half screen, full screen and the like, I knew these were very weak tactics and so it turned out.
Before you run away with the impression that I’m unidimensional, let me tell you this works across a multitude of sporting events. I serendipitiously discovered this capability of mine during IPL 2010. When I realized that my leaning on the cupboard in my son’s room while balanced on one leg had led to that over where Dhoni hit Irfan Pathan for 18 runs in the last over at Dharmasala, I knew I had the gift. I have since become somewhat of a specialist in reading the signs and doing the required activities for CSK. That CSK are one of the most successful franchises in IPL is a matter of utmost pride and gratification for me.
Even with CSK it’s not easy, like I said. All through IPL 2020 in UAE, I struggled. I just couldn’t find the right combination of device, room, chair, posture, diet and all the other small things that would have ensured victory for CSK. I try to take solace in the fact that everyone goes a bad patch, but you have to go through it to know how miserable it is, especially when an entire franchise and all its fans are hoping for good results and you’re just not able to do enough to bring it home…
I realize some of you may be a little incredulous. To the sceptics, I’ll point to the saying that when a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, it could lead to a Tornado in Tennessee. In all humility, I’ll not claim to be the only one who can pull this off. The story goes that when India won the famous Eden Gardens test match against Australia in 2001, nobody moved in the Indian dressing room when Dravid and Laxman were at the crease. Though, as a practitioner I must say that simply not moving sounds like beginner level stuff.
Anyway come Monday, Fed meets Lorenzo Sonego. Italian, age 26, ranked 26 (both 26, is there a message there?), right hander. I need some more data to be able to decide my going in strategy and also prepare my plan B and C. Something about how Federer has been playing tells me I’ll have to dig deep. Let’s see how it goes. A small part of me won’t be sorry if Fed loses. Next week is quite busy. I do have a day job and this behind the scenes work that I do with no reward or recognition can sometimes be quite exhausting…
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