5 Inspiring Moments from Australian Open!



5 days gone but still the hangover persists! For me and I am sure many of the fans out there, it was the  best Australian Open of the decade. Never have I seen a Grand Slam with such heroic battles, brilliant comebacks and above all a test of stamina, determination and endurance of the top athletes.

As Roger Bannister rightly said: "The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win."

Wasn’t it what we witnessed as Australian Open culminated with the biggest battle in a GS?
So I thought let’s take a look back at the top 5 inspiring moments during the first GS of the year 2012:

5)  Company Matters: Just one month back, Andy Murray was a player whose anger management issues, on the court were more popular than his achievements on the court. But with the arrival of Ivan Lendl in Murray’s camp, things seem to have worked for this immensely talented Scot as he showed us his fighting attitude for the first time during the SF against Djokovic. It was really difficult to imagine such a huge transformation in a matter of 2 week’s time. But that’s the lesson to be learnt: Surround yourself with positive minded people, whom you respect for their special qualities, you will be changed!

 “Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher”- Oprah Winfrey

4)  Irrelevance of Pressure: There are two types of people in this world- One who succumbs to pressure and the other who rise high in the same circumstances. Sam Stosur and Bernard Tomic in my mind are the perfect example of the above respectively. Bernard Tomic’s victory over Verdasco in five sets after being two sets down was a lesson to the tennis world that pressure will be a factor only if you think it to be one.

“Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise”- Kobe Bryant

3) Just one more step: If you are 4 match points down against a top 5 player, why would you even think of trying? But Kim Clijsters taught us that taking that one more step in the right direction instead of quitting can lead to victory in the end.

“They quit on the one yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touchdown and that’s why they lose” – Ross Perot

2) Never Give Up: There can be nothing better than to see a tennis player fight his heart out for his goals. There is a possibility that you might not reach the destination but every effort that you make takes you an inch closer. And who better a example than Rafael Nadal. His quest to win the mental battle against defying his body and mind was one of the features of Australian Open
.
“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.” – Eric Hoffer

1) Belief- The key to success: People who have accomplished great things in life have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible. When the entire world talked about Fedal and how no one will be able to match them, Djokovic was silently getting prepared to prove everyone wrong. “I have to say that even though that he’s the best and everybody thinks that he’s unbeatable, I say he’s not unbeatable. He’s beatable, you know.”-Novak Djokovic after losing to Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinal of Roland Garros in 2006.

And look where he is now- 7 times in a row he has defeated Nadal!

“Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


(Have a look at what motivated Nadal/Djokovic to produce the world class tennis in the epic final)

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Also: Lost Hope?  (Maria Sharapova) 

Evolution of Novak Djokovic- Australian Open (2007-2012)!