The Hindu : Sport : Validating Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence

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Monday, Jul 03, 2006

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Validating Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence

Nirmal Shekar

NEW STAR: Andy Murray's victory over Andy Roddick was a consolation for the British fans after the loss in the football World Cup. — Photo: AP

London : A curling David Beckham free-kick away from the Earls Court underground station, a little over an hour after sunrise on Sunday, garbage bins were overflowing with empty beer cans.

It was already warm on a day when temperatures were expected to rise to 33 degrees Celsius and a bearded man of indeterminable age, bits and pieces of the previous night's dinner adorning his ginger beard like decorations on a Christmas tree, stirred lazily in his bedsit of the day — a pavement on Earls Court Road.

Business was rather slow for the newspaper vendor outside the underground station and he was glad to welcome his regular customer of a few weeks each summer.

"Nothing changes, does it," he said as this writer glanced at the headlines. "End of the world." "It's all over." "England's dreams in Rooins." Names change, dates change, venues change. But, in the end, when it comes to English football, nothing really changes.

From the glory days of Paul Gascoigne down to his spiritual heir, Wayne Rooney, the more things are prodded on to change, the more they remain the same here.

Euro 1996, World Cup 2002, Euro 2004...you name the tournament and we've seen it all, an almost sickening re-enactment of the same sort of drama.

Nothing in the world of sport validates Friedrich Nietzsche's famous idea of eternal recurrence as does English football.

"The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and over, and you with it, a grain of dust," wrote the great philosopher in Thus Spake Zarathustra.

What, then, is the fate today of tens of millions of dreams in this country? Nothing but a grain of dust. But, remember, dust will turn to fantasy again soon. For, all things recur eternally; not the least, this cruel drama.

Then again, not long after Beckham, Gerrard and Lampard trooped out of the stadium in Gelsenkirchen on Saturday, a brave Scot gave something to cheer about for those inclined to an altogether different sports watching experience - the garden party on the Wimbledon lawns.

Andy Murray, who was at the centre of a storm recently after he was quoted in the press as saying that he didn't care if England won or lost in the World Cup, played the finest match of his career to beat Andy Roddick, the third seed and a finalist here in 2004 and 2005, on the centre court late in the evening.

Murray, who won 7-6(4), 6-4, 6-4 to make the fourth round, fought off three setpoints in the first set to win it in a tiebreak.

He lost serve for the first time in the fifth game of the third but immediately broke back and then, again broke the American in the 10th to close out the match.

"That's got to be my best win," said Murray, aged 19. "Beating a two-time Wimbledon finalist, a former world No.1 and Grand Slam champion."

THE RESULTS

Prefix indicates seeding

Men's singles:

Third round: 23-David Ferrer (Esp) bt 10-Fernando Gonzalez (Chi) 4-6, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4; 22-Jarkko Nieminen (Fin) bt Philipp Kohlschreiber (Ger) 1-6, 6-2, 6-3, 7-6(4); 7-Mario Ancic (Cro) bt Stanislas Wawrinka (Sui) 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 6-3; Andy Murray (GBR) bt 3-Andy Roddick (U.S.) 7-6(4), 6-4, 6-4; 18-Marcos Baghdatis (Cyp) bt 15-Sebastien Grosjean (Fra) 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-1.

Women's singles:

Third round: 4-Maria Sharapova (Rus) bt Amy Frazier (U.S.) 6-3, 6-2; 26-Jelena Jankovic (SCG) bt 6-Venus Williams (U.S.) 7-6(8), 4-6, 6-4; 1-Amelie Mauresmo (Fra) bt Nicole Pratt (Aus) 6-1, 6-2.

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