And the winner is: Tennis!

Cards on the table time, there is nothing quite like winning in a competitive activity. Winning at the top level in anything (well, almost...) is absolutely amazing and gives the winner an incredible feeling, something impossible to describe. Being human, it is then easy to get carried away on the strength of being a winner and become obnoxious, tiresome, supremely arrogant.

Roger Federer has been at the top - or thereabouts - of the tennis world for a very long time, still playing amazing tennis at the advanced (ha-ha!) age of 37 and is currently ranked no.3 in the world. He has broken most records available by playing supreme tennis - stylish, powerful, effective yet graceful. More importantly for me  he has always appeared to be a graceful, modest, polite human being, never spiteful in defeat but displaying an iron discipline to 'do better next time'. He is a true icon of the sport of tennis, someone to be roundly admired.

The young Greek man - Stefanos Tsitsipas - who has just beaten Roger Federer in the Australian Open 4th round, hopefully represents the future of tennis, or certainly of the kind represented by Roger Federer. Not only does he play in a style reminiscent of the master, but with the benefit bestowed upon him by his youth (he is only 20 years old) he can make the power and elegance last and last. Furthermore, while he is obviously a very determined young man, he is also calm, modest and polite; he knows he has supreme ability but is comfortable in his own skin.

The little I have seen of Tsitsipas playing tennis, including a few minutes of highlights of the 4th round in Australia against Federer, he plays exciting tennis that is a joy to watch, push-push-push all the time. His strokes are big, elegant and powerful, with a style defined by athleticism and great court control. Should he be fortunate and not suffer any serious injuries, physical or mental, we should see a lot more of this man at the top of the tennis tree. He may even cause tennis mania in Greek youth...

Roger Federer, gracious in defeat as always, praised Tsitsipas highly, saying he lost to the better man on the day. Tsitsipas himself could hardly believe the scale of his achievement, especially against a man who had been his idol as a young player and was still a force to be reckoned with. Let us hope that both men continue to shine with their skill and grace on the world tennis stage and giving us all comportment lessons off it.