… is so much more interesting than just watching the tennis. Today was the men’s final at the Wimbledon championships. Roger Federer had won for the past four years on the trot and was huge favourite to make it five in a row. And so he did, beating Rafael Nadal over five sets.
Federer is cool, calm and collected, with a Bond-like aura of competence. Watching his face after a point, you could rarely tell if he’d just done something brilliant or messed up completely. Nadal is uninhibitedly extroverted. But we saw an uncharacteristic display from Federer today, when he was in the process of losing the fourth set horribly, and having trouble with Hawkeye.
Hawkeye is an automatic system that reconstructs the path of a ball and pronounces on whether it landed in or out of court. Wimbledon has a new system this year, allowing each player to ‘challenge’ a calls if they think the linesmen have it wrong; then it gets checked by Hawkeye, and that’s the end of the debate.
On several high-tension points in succession, Nadal challenged and Hawkeye proved him right, and Federer challenged and Hawkeye proved him wrong. He complained to the umpire in mid-game – which was daft, as it’s not as if the umpire were likely to overrule the machine. And again after losing the game, he kept on grumbling and muttering away, saying something about how the system was ‘killing him’.
Well, he turned out to have remarkable powers of recovery, and won the final set, despite Nadal being on the verge of breaking his serve (ie getting into a winning position again) a couple of times.
All of which is by way of background to the readings. Here they are:
‘How will Nadal do in the final?’
Hexagram 2, line 6 moving, 23. Earth, receptive power, stripped away. The moving line says:
‘Dragons battling in the open country.
Their blood dark and yellow.’
(The match was the longest final in decades… Nadal lost… and he did sustain an injury.)
‘How will Federer do in the final?’
Hexagram 52, lines 4 and 5 moving, changing to 33. At this point in the divinations I was fairly sure Nadal couldn’t win it, but that 33 puzzled me. Unless… hmm… Federer said something afterwards about being grateful for every remaining title Nadal let him win. (Federer’s four years older; Nadal’s improving every year.)
As for 52, its essential unflappability is pure Federer – at least, that’s what I wrote before the match! (He seemed to be missing his usual 52.5.) Battling dragons versus the imperturbability of a mountain: a perfect character profile of the two players.
One final, experimental question:
‘What will be the outcome of the match?’
Hexagram 47, Oppression, changing at line 5 to Hexagram 40, Release. Here’s the moving line:
‘Nose cut, feet cut.
Oppressed by the crimson sashes.
Then moving slowly brings release.
Harvest to use offerings and oblations.’
I wrote in my notes: ‘The one who has calls go against him, I might expect to be the winner.’ Indeed. Federer’s experience with Hawkeye – the machine-rule it was pointless to argue with, and that embarrassed and hampered him repeatedly – sounds like a perfect example of 47.5.
Tennis – an endless source of perfect miniature dramas to cast light on the lines. I’ll never see 47.5 again without thinking of Federer versus Hawkeye.