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男子职业网球是这个星球上最能给人带来满足感的运动

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One of these days men's tennis is going to get boring again. There will be a fallow period. Greats will retire, get hurt, fatten up, open bad restaurants, babble on TV and buy vineyards. There will be a new, unremarkable No. 1. A murky two through 10. Maybe a U.S. player -- a U.S. player! -- will crack the top five. Grand Slam finals will shrink to three uneventful sets. Tennis will return to that stale-aired foyer it got trapped in a while ago -- dull, characterless, skippable.


总



That time isn't now. Men's professionaltennis may be the most satisfying sport on the planet at the moment. There is no game with so much excellence currently swirling at its top, that so reliably delivers not just entertainment, but historic greatness. It isn't to be missed. Conventional superlatives fail. Once-a-lifetime? Symphony of brilliance? Wicked good? It all sounds cheesy, inadequate. But what's happening in the men's game is as close as sports gets to unadulterated joy, the kind of outrageous viewer experience that leaves the audience gasping, as if anaerobic, as it did Sunday morning, in the men's final of the Australian Open.


有一天，男子网坛又会变得单调乏味。届时将会有一段休整期。巨星们纷纷退役、受伤、发福，他们会经营很差的餐馆，在电视上喋喋不休，或者买下葡萄酒庄。届时将会有一位新的、毫不惹眼的排名第一选手产生，第二到第十名也都是些未能深入人心的面孔。也许会有一位美国选手──美国选手！──跻身前五名。大满贯（Grand Slam）决赛会缩水至波澜不惊的三盘。整个网坛又会和前阵子一样再度陷入沉闷：索然无味、乏善可陈、可有可无。



To be clear, when I say men's tennis, I am really talking about the interactions of three players. Maybe four, if we want to be generous and include Andy Murray, who has yet to win a Grand Slam, and keeps grabbing for that glory, only to pull the doorknob off in his hand. The unquestioned top three are world No. 1 Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Between them, they have won 31 Slams, and Djokovic is still shopping in aisle one. They are as formidable and as entangled a trio as tennis has ever witnessed -- as silly as it is to get into generational comparisons, it's fair to say that the great three of Borg, McEnroe and Connors (26 combined Slams) are on the run, in their flowing hair and short-shorts.


那个时刻尚未到来。现在，男子职业网球也许是这个星球上最能给人带来满足感的运动。没有哪项运动能像正处于巅峰的网球一样精彩，它不仅可靠地为我们提供娱乐体验，更是不断地创造着历史。比赛不容错过。老将们纷纷落败。千载难逢？恢宏的交响乐？精彩绝伦？这些形容都略显庸俗、不够充分。但男子网坛正在上演的比赛最能体现体育所能带给我们的纯粹快乐，那种令观众屏住呼吸、好像不需要氧气的绝妙观感体验，正如1月29日早晨澳大利亚网球公开赛（Australian Open）男单决赛呈现给我们的那样。



This past week there were early mornings, depending on where you lived, and your ability to have woken up in darkness to watch the spectacle. Reasonable people used a DVR, but Sunday's 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-5 epic, won by Djokovic over Nadal, wasn't designed to be breezed over via remote control. This was a match that accelerated and de-accelerated and accelerated again; that both men locked up and let escape; that left a pair of champions droop-shouldered and wobbly. It lasted a boiled egg under six hours, beating the second-longest Grand Slam final by 59 minutes. It was briefly delayed by rain. It ended with Djokovic yanking at his collar, stripping off his shirt, and unleashing a primal yell -- Fred Stolle meets Freddie Mercury.


需要澄清的是，我所说的男子网球实际上指的是三位运动员之间的互相角力。也许是四位，如果我们大方地把安迪•穆雷（Andy Murray）也算上的话。尚未夺得过大满贯冠军的他一直在为这个荣誉不断努力，但却总是与其失之交臂。前三甲毋庸置疑是世界冠军诺瓦克•德约科维奇（Novak Djokovic），以及拉斐尔•纳达尔（Rafael Nadal）和罗杰•费德勒（Roger Federer）。他们三人共赢得过31次大满贯赛事冠军，并且德约科维奇正意欲夺取下一个大满贯冠军。他们构成了网球史上前所未有的"铁三角"，虽然进行跨代比较显得有点荒唐，但公平地说，他们颇有当年博格（Borg）、麦肯罗（McEnroe）和康诺尔斯（Connors）（三人共赢得26个大满贯赛事冠军）这三位巨头的风范，甩着飘扬的头发、穿着超短裤在球场上来回奔跑。



The win was Djokovic's second straight Australian Open title and his third Slam victory in a row. Nadal won three straight in 2010, and Federer did it twice before, and Pete Sampras once before him. Looming above, there is only Rod Laver, who polished all four in the 1962 and 1969 calendar, and watched Sunday's final in the arena that bears his name.


澳网开打期间，如果住的地方与澳洲有时差，你又是个夜猫子，那你肯定有好几个凌晨起大早观看赛事。理性的人们用硬盘录像机把比赛录下来，但决赛场上德约科维奇以5-7、6-4、6-2、 6-7（5）、7-5击败纳达尔的盛况可不是随便用遥控器就能看过瘾的。这是一场时而激烈时而舒缓、时而又再度急促的比赛，两个人全神贯注又尽情挥洒，打得这对大满贯冠军肩膀酸疼、颤抖不已。激烈的比赛持续了六个小时，比时间第二长的大满贯决赛多59分钟。比赛因雨短暂中断，最后比赛以德约科维奇扯着衣领、脱掉上衣并发出野性的呐喊而结束──弗雷德•斯托利（Fred Stolle，澳大利亚网球名宿，拿到了12个大满贯桂冠）与弗雷迪•墨丘利（Freddie Mercury，皇后乐队主唱）合而为一了。



Once considered an interloper with dubious endurance, Djokovic, 24, now stands as the sport's alpha. He began 2011 with a 41-match win streak, and has won four of the last five Slams. You'd think Djokovic's dominance might suck some of the drama out of the sport, but this is thoroughly not the case. After a string of one-sided defeats to Djokovic, Nadal's narrow loss Sunday is new fuel for the Spaniard, who remains just 25. 'During all of 2011, I didn't play much like this,' Nadal said afterward. At 30, Federer is elegantly fighting the sunset -- he's still capable of beating both, pushing Nadal to four sets in the semis, beating Djokovic in the French and taking him to match point in the past two U.S. Opens.


这是德约科维奇连续第二次赢得澳网公开赛冠军，也是连续第三次获得大满贯赛事冠军。纳达尔2010年曾连夺三大满贯，费德勒此前曾连夺过两次，皮特•桑普拉斯（Pete Sampras）在费德勒之前连夺过一次。在他们之上的就只有罗德•拉弗（Rod Laver）了，他在1962和1969年均夺得四项大满贯赛事冠军，1月29日他在印有他名字的赛场上观看了澳网决赛。



Tennis fans are giddy, and may get carried away in the afterglow of these tournaments, but this is defensible carrying away. That 2008 Wimbledon twilight five-setter between Federer and Nadal set a glorious standard, but since then there's been a steady stream of classics, on all surfaces, between the big three, and even Murray, too. As soon as new matches are consecrated, they're replaced. (How quickly Sunday's thriller vaporized Djokovic's five-set semi over Murray and Nadal's four-setter over Federer, not to mention Victoria Azarenka's 6-3, 6-0 rout of Maria Sharapova in the women's final.) The torrent of great tennis has undermined the old fear that the game would unravel with new technology, that it would become a tedious game of baseline heavy hitting. Ha.


24岁的德约科维奇曾被认为耐力不佳，难以有所建树，如今却屹立网坛巅峰。2011年他连续赢得41场比赛，并在上五场大满贯赛事中夺得四场冠军。也许你会觉得，德约科维奇的强势可能会削弱比赛的刺激程度，但事实上完全不是这回事。在此前连续几场比赛大比分输给德约科维奇后，澳网决赛的险败就成了纳达尔的新动力。这位年仅25岁的西班牙选手赛后说道，2011年一整年我都没这么打过球。30岁的费德勒正优雅地应对迟暮生涯，他依然有能力打败德约科维奇和纳达尔，半决赛中将纳达尔逼入第四盘，法网公开赛中击败德约科维奇，并在上两届美网公开赛（U.S. Opens）中与德约科维奇打到了决胜点。



A confident Djokovic will press toward a Steffi Graf-style 'Golden' Slam, with the deliciouspotentialexclamation point of an Olympic title in London at the All-England Club. But his most formidablechallenge may come next, at the French Open, on the red brick dust Nadal claims as a pied-a-terre.


网球迷们眼花缭乱，并有可能在联赛尾声时忘乎所以，但这种忘乎所以是可以理解的。2008年温布尔登国际网球公开赛（Wimbledon）最后那场费德勒和纳达尔之间的五盘大战树立了一个辉煌的标准，但此后又有了一系列这网坛铁三角、甚至包括穆雷在内的四人之间的经典赛事。随着新比赛被奉为神圣，早的赛事会被淡忘。（澳网决赛的惊险赛事那么快就让德约科维奇对穆雷的五盘半决赛和纳达尔对费德勒的四盘半决赛成为过眼云烟，更别提维多利亚•阿扎伦卡（Victoria Azarenka）以6-3、6-0的比分轻取玛利亚•莎拉波娃（Maria Sharapova）的女单决赛了。）网球这项伟大运动的激流逐渐削弱了旧有的恐惧，人们曾担心这项运动会遭到新技术的冲击，会成为乏味的边线激烈冲撞运动。哈，怎么可能！



Could a 60-minute Super Bowl equal this kind of drawn-out saga? An NBA Final? An Olympiad? (Please don't say the Pro Bowl or the NHL All-Star Game.) Every spring someone trots out the claim that the flurry of buzzer beaters in the NCAA basketball tournament makes it the most riveting event in sports, and there's always the World Cup, but what's happening in tennis feels far more intimate, close up, personal. Djokovic, Nadal and Federer are deep in our pores. It feels like they have more to give, but you never can be sure, and that's what makes it so . . . whatever word you want to use. On to Paris.


信心满满的德约科维奇会冲刺施特菲•格拉芙（Steffi Graf）那样的"金满贯"，可能会出人意料地在伦敦全英俱乐部（All-England Club）拿到奥运冠军。但他最艰巨的挑战可能马上就会在法网公开赛、在纳达尔最为擅长的红土场上到来。



Jason Gay


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