Analyzing prize points, technique and tactics, publicity stunts and the behavior of judges is an extremely pointless exercise. But even now, two weeks later, Wimbledon still doesn’t let me go. I almost dream about the players' faces. I can almost hear the rustle of the tarp being unfurled over the soaked court. And I understand that there is something to analyze... Here, on the London lawns, not just players fought. Different creatures fought. Different by nature

FOOLS, WITCHES AND HEROES...

It 's all over. It has calmed down. However, it is still too early to lower the curtain.

The main question remains: are MASTERS and HEROES leaving?

Are there any GUYS left?

...By the way, here’s the same question: who is the master and who is the hero?

I watched the main tournament of the year in Montenegro. On a rest. I watched it on three “dish” channels at once: the French “Pate-Sport”, the German DSF, the Czech TV-3. That is, the picture was the same, they just turned on at different times. “How many people,” I thought, “in these very minutes of “quiet hour” turn on the TV to watch Wimbledon? Well, of course, all sorts of vacationers like me who sit in hotels and bars, plus just slackers or people who work at night, waiters, security guards, casual visitors, housewives, people in creative professions, children, women, old people? Although on a residual basis, will there be several million across Europe? Yes, for sure there will be enough.”

And here in Russia, hundreds of people watch Wimbledon live. Well, thousands.

I even somehow felt sorry for Russia. We're probably working too hard...

Although, on the other hand, who needs it anyway, this Wimbledon? Interest Ask.

Thanks to the free “plate,” I suddenly found myself in a different dimension of sports, where it doesn’t matter who is “ours” and who is “not ours.” Where something completely different and strange is happening.

Villainy and genius suddenly changed places for me. Hamlet turned out to be a lethargic and uninteresting person. Prince Myshkin turned into Rogozhin. And Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk became Thumbelina. However, as sports commentators say, first things first.

The plot, which unfolded on trampled English lawns, turned out to be downright fantastic this year. Or rather, fantasy. Before the tournament, to be honest, I was sad: there was no one to look at. “Yes,” I thought, “the time of heroes has passed. Cool, but unimpressive fighters remained. Young wolves who are very tired of the old wolf Akela.” After Wimbledon, by the way, I decided to watch another tournament for comparison, on clay, in Gstaad, Switzerland. Two completely identical men in white were running on a red field: Sebastian Grosjean and Nicholas Lapentti. Both are the same height, with caps pushed back equally. Both with inexpressive technique, both with fashionable clumsiness in their movements, both with very modern faces, I would even say, with expressive faces, which have become completely identical among sports youth of all peoples and countries: the same haircuts, the same coolness, the same lack of feelings, except the simplest: rage, frustration, resentment, in general... there is something childish in all these guys. That’s what I call them all to myself – GUYS.

However, my thirteen-year-old son Sasha, who buys these tennis players on the virtual market on the Internet and earns virtual points for them in some tricky game, he somehow understands their children's personalities, he sympathizes with some, for others he is sick, he prefers someone, but I absolutely cannot distinguish these GUYS from each other, this Grosjean from this Lapentti.

...So, everyone expected that the current Wimbledon would go down in history as Akela's last unsuccessful hunt. And that someone from this crowd of young wolves will definitely take his place. They delegate someone there. However, even the most sophisticated observers still could not say who exactly. After all, the number of GUYS is increasing all the time. To their informal leaders - Safin and Hewitt - the Swiss Federer and three Frenchmen have recently been added: Santoro, Grosjean, Clement, and the Ecuadorian Lapentti, and...

Well, in general, some crazy bunch of teenagers who suddenly grew up. And age, of course, is not the main thing here.

It happens that a very young person demonstrates perfect, bright, brilliant tennis. A child becomes a master before the eyes of an astonished audience. You don’t have to look far for examples: this is exactly how Sampras, Agassi, and Becker suddenly exploded.

...And it also happens that the players, who are already quite old and experienced, somehow subtly resemble children.

I am not ready to analyze their game from this point of view. They all work hard on the court in their own way. But all the same, may those experienced in tennis forgive me, this is some kind of children's tennis, the power of the blows is simply incredible, but there is no style, face, or character! Yes, it’s not even a matter of style... It’s enough to look at the kind of kindergarten resentment with which chubby-cheeked Federer looks at his opponent, how Safin throws his racket and Hewitt walks around the court with the victorious grin of a mischievous excellent student - and somehow everything immediately becomes clear. In their very gait and figure, they all retain an infantile quality, I don’t know why. It seems that each of them has never thought about their personal destiny as an adult. That their common childhood is still going on.

Indeed, Akela missed the mark once again. That is, Sampras strained and at the same time sluggishly lost to the naive Federer. Sampras is probably still the king of kings somewhere inside. No one can believe that this god of tennis, huge, slow, viscous and beautiful in all his movements, like a beast, can just go away like that while the stands whistle.

Pete is still incredibly handsome, but... somehow confused and unfocused. And he simply doesn’t finish many of his seemingly automatic gestures. The hand hangs. The elbow does not rotate. The foot slips. Somewhere inside there sits some kind of wormhole. Some kind of fear, some kind of shadow looms before his large southern eyes. I don't dare to speculate. But the sight of a dying king is a difficult sight.

He still walks, sits on the throne, casually hugs the queen with one hand, and there is death in his eyes. A curtain.

However, it was still too early to lower the curtain.

Yes, at first the audience sighed: THE GUYS win, the MASTERS and HEROES leave.

...By the way, here’s the same question: who is the master and who is the hero?

The question disappeared by itself during the semi-finals. When Patrick Rafter and Andre Agassi fought to the death.

At first it seemed to me that this would be a duel between a powerful, noble, but slightly simple-minded Australian knight (Rafter) and a sophisticated master and magician endowed with supernatural power (Agassi).

Agassi is “a true miracle of nature,” as my wife put it after glancing at the screen. Small, round, with a funny mincing gait, with a monstrously weak serve, absolutely unathletic in appearance (a sort of member of the Pickwick Club), with a round shaved head and offended flapping eyes - this Agassi gives the ball such a devilish spin, sends it with such incredible accuracy, that the public is literally watching this black witchcraft with bated breath.

There is something strange, dark in the very personality of Andre Agassi. Over the past ten years, the fourth person with this name has already been born before our eyes, and each of these four does not even look like the other three. A gentle romantic young man who shook his mop of well-combed hair upon impact and smiled tenderly at all the children on the planet from an educational videotape. The devil is on the court, breaking all ideas about how to play today. Scandalous and narcissistic, selfish and intolerant of everyone and everything, with an earring in his ear and a provocative bandana, more likely a tennis fashion designer than a player, a pop symbol, an advertising slogan, involuntarily growing fat and destroying himself with bouts of bilious rage. This penultimate Agassi fell to the very bottom of the classification, as if a luxury limousine had crashed into a roadside pole at full speed.

Now there is no need to speculate about a “psychological crisis.” Psychology has nothing to do with it at all. The third Agassi died only for the fourth to be born. In the jaded and arrogant fat man there already lived a master of the game, who had to wait for the natural death of his useless shell. But Agassi’s witchcraft has a clear Persian connotation, this is witchcraft from “A Thousand and One Nights”, this is an eastern, black, infernal skill that knows no earthly boundaries and human limits. Patrick Rafter has a completely different kind of sorcery. This is an ordinary white sorcerer. At first, it generally seems that Rafter is not a very agile player, an old, outdated player. A sort of tennis geezer. And suddenly it turns out that above the tennis court, in the very air, in the very space above the lawn, some strange curves, magical signs, figures intersect, which the ball makes along an increasingly complex and whimsical trajectory.

It was Rafter and Agassi who were bewitching each other! To a sophisticated blow, to a devilish undercut, there was an answer, different, but similar.

But if Agassi simply turns on his charms to the fullest, spins the ball madly, practically standing still, then Rafter helps his magic in an earthly, human way: now flying up, now sitting down, now falling, now clinging to the net, now swirling in corners of the magic square.

In general, there is no point in describing this tennis sorcery. Yes, and dangerous. Such things are no joke. I laughed for a long time when I saw how Rafter and Agassi were trying to quite directly, consciously use magic on the court (after all, if we ignore the game, in essence, these are ordinary people). Rafter slathered himself in sunscreen and drew two thick white lines across his face, like the war paint of Indians or African tribes or Australian aborigines. Agassi looked and looked and also asked for some cream. This is him, a southern man who is not at all afraid of the sun, who has not worn a headdress for a long time, but simply shaves his skull bald. Agassi asked for cream, looked at Rafter and, of course, did not apply war paint, but thinly smeared the cream on his nose. Removed the magic. It was very funny to watch how this guy, who can knock down a person, if not kill him, with a hit of the ball, minces around the court and smears his nose with a thin finger. It was also funny to watch Rafter perform magic with the cap and the ring (a ring around the head), then taking it off, then putting it on, then taking it off again.

I knew Agassi was going to lose the moment he spoke loudly and loudly to the judge. The fact is that the fourth and last Agassi has two golden rules: eat less and be silent more. He broke one of these rules. Even the transparent English words conveyed all the rage and all the rudeness of this speech: “Ely-fire, so many people are sitting here, and everyone saw that there was an out, but you’re the only one who didn’t see it, you goat?” — if I were to make a literary translation of this remark, it would be exactly like this.

Yes, the master can allow himself to break one of his spells, but then let him not be offended.

While I was watching the battle of the titans (no joke, it was a brilliant game), I was increasingly interested in the question: who will confront one of them in the finale? Well who? Ivanisevic, Henman? Yes, they are no match for these Great Sorcerers!

Well, who, tell me, can resist the sorcerer? Hero? Yes, hardly... A child? Also no.

Only a fool can resist a sorcerer.

Tennis fools are a separate story. Even masters and sorcerers are a tiny caste. Well, let's say, every five or ten years two or three people are added to it. Heroes and knights - this is clear, this is the backbone, the backbone of any tournament, the main substance. There are more of them. Among them there are even superheroes - Kafelnikov, Kuerten, Corretha. It’s also clear with young wolves. There are, as I already said, a whole flock of them. Some drop out, others become men, heroes, knights.

...What about fools?

Henman and Ivanisevic are two different types of tennis fools. Henman is a diligent fool. Ivanishevich is a lazy fool. Now I’ll tell you about them in more detail, but first I’ll remember the previous fools from the recent past in order to emphasize my idea that a real tennis fool appears in tennis extremely rarely, and he may not appear at all. Here was the Austrian Thomas Muster, the king of clay, a fat guy, with a broken bone, injured in a car accident - no one could understand how many times he could hit the ball from one end of the court to the other with a lazy grin. Everyone broke down during this stupid game - both Sampras and Agassi. But Muster himself quickly got tired of all this. But what can we take from him!

Michael Chang was a completely different kind of fool. A little Chinese who hit any ball. Playing only for the rebound is a useless exercise in tennis, everyone knows, but Chang followed Sampras closely for a very long time. It was real tennis karate, when the little man fought off any blow from any big man, and sooner or later the big man fell, lifeless, on his face.

So. Tennis fools are special people. Sometimes they play disgustingly bad. But more often than not, their stupidity helps them.

Tim Henman, Ivanisevic's penultimate victim in this tournament, was born English, which means that by definition he had to play bad tennis. The founders of everything in the world - that's the thing - have a unique understanding of children's sports. They have it for general development, not for results. Nobody forces children to work here, even in sports (apparently, the instructions of Dickens's dad had an effect). The only exception, they say, is football, and even then... look at the Premier League, who plays in it, the British?

So, Tim Henman himself came up with the idea that you need to run cross-country and do push-ups twice a day, Tim Henman himself understood what training is, he pulled himself out of this traditional English swamp by his own hair. But his difficult sports childhood forever affected his game. And Henman’s face clearly has something in common with the favorite characters of English children: Beavis and Butthead. An unruly tuft of hair always sticks out above the crown of my head. There is some kind of sweet debility in the eyes. His game is difficult to describe. Well, to put it quite simply: it always seems that Henman is about to miss, won’t reach, won’t hit, won’t deflect, won’t twist... He’ll be late, he won’t be able to. I'm afraid that this seems to be true not only for the spectators, but also for the opponent. But everyone is wrong. Both spectators and rivals.

Goran Ivanisevic, a great friend of the Kremlin Cup, who more than once kissed Moscow girls on a frosty night and hugged our political elite, is a tennis fool of a completely different kind.

On the shores of the Adriatic Sea, where the waves splash and all that, people are born, apparently gifted with everything at once: beauty, health, talent, a luxurious sense of life. They have one problem - such people have no need to fight and try, they already have everything right away. Goran, like all people of this type, was probably doomed to flare up brightly and quickly burn out.

This would be his fate. The classic version of the killer, who was waiting for him around the corner, whistling and with his hands in his pockets, is not going anywhere! He'll come now.

But fools can deceive even fate. Of course, after his bright youthful rise, Ivanisevic’s play became ponderous. But he figured out how to turn a minus into a plus! Everyone knows that the tennis serve is just the beginning of the game. Goran was one of the first to figure out how to make an end out of a beginning. Turn the chip over with the wrong end.

His terrible, lethal, incredibly powerful (after all, Goran is not a muscleman at all) serve broke all the canons of world tennis. Thirty, forty, fifty aces per game. No one has done so much. It's not much fun to watch if you're just looking at tennis from a consumer perspective. If you see psychology, seeing people who play is very interesting. Goran's game is always a duel of nerves. Free will. Whoever psychologically breaks whom will put the squeeze on him.

But the public and journalists saw it differently. Ivanisevic was criticized and booed. No one wanted to watch the best players leave the court dejectedly and humiliatedly, without having time to show anything because of the terrible serve of the Yugoslav (now Croatian).

This atmosphere could not help but affect the psyche of the handsome man. After all, since childhood he was accustomed to everyone loving him. He didn't want to be a "feeding machine." The robot, as he was probably called more than once. But he could no longer change himself: the result is known, Goran fell too low, into the second, almost third hundred. To the dark and musty bottom. I can’t even believe it, but at the last Kremlin Cup he played qualifying, and also participated in “challengers” - semi-amateur and semi-professional tournaments, where children and losers earn points in sweaty and far from ideal conditions.

“From there”, as a rule, they do not return. But Goran returned. Of course, there were Wimbledon champions who reached the final through a “wild card” (a personal invitation to a player who did not make it into the bracket), there were champions from the second hundred, but this happened with young geniuses, but not with old men!

The return was so unexpected that the whole world gasped, and Croatia sang and danced for three days.

Yes, Goran broke all the rules. Why? Only fools can break rules with impunity.

Of course, if he had read these words in Russian, he would have felt offended. But foolishness in creativity and in sports is sometimes greater than genius itself. Now all of us who previously hated him for these serves simply understood: the fool Goran only took a new look at the game. Changed her whole philosophy. He proved that it could consist of an instant play. And end at the very beginning.

Everything is possible in the game! You just need to understand this ...

I left the hotel and took a deep breath. The stuffy, warm, noisy resort evening began. And I was very sorry that I would not see Wimbledon until next year. Yes, and will I see? After all, there are very rarely such coincidences: what they play, and you have time to turn on and watch.

In order to spit on everything and watch this endless, long, like this evening, a duel-you must be someone. Master, hero, kid ... Well, or a fool or something.

And I am an ordinary person.

Boris MINAEV

On photos:

Goran Ivanishevich performed a miracle. And this miracle made us think: what happened at the current Wimbledon? Not in the sense of the rating, and not even in the sense of game psychology, and not even in the sense of tennis development
Patrick Raffer is a typical representative of the white sorcerer tribe, a medieval magician from a fairy tale. At the same time rather kind
Leighton Hughitt. It is said that either he or Safin will replace the Samprase. But he has no game handwriting yet
Roger Federer. So far, no one knows what he is still capable of. But he had already beat the Samples
Akela missed. But this still does not mean anything
Tim Henman. English Ivan-Durak. Favorite the public
Andre Agassi - fourth birth in tennis
Photos used in the material: Reuters