Roland Garros Grand Finale. Our rising Polish tennis superstar Maja Chwalińska unfortunately lost against a teenage Russian player, Mirra Andreeva. After the match, I called my mom to debrief for a couple of minutes and as a joke, I asked her, “Why didn’t you sign me up for tennis classes when I was younger? Win a couple of matches and maybe I wouldn’t have to work ever again.” She knew how to humble my ego, answering, “Rita, they would all break you in half. You resemble a ballerina more than a tennis player.” And well… she’s not wrong, as last time I played padel (which is not even close to tennis), I couldn’t walk for two days straight.
But do you need to be the best to enjoy sports? No, although there are absolutely people who cannot enjoy something they are not good at – those people are called perfectionists, and I am definitely one of them. However, I managed to overcome my disorder and reconcile myself to the thought that I will never be Williams when I play tennis, I will never be Phelps when I swim and I will definitely never be Mayweather when I box, because I don’t even know how to box in the first place. But that’s okay. Sport can be a great opportunity for a mind reset and for fun. And even though competition plays a huge part in sports, it does not mean that you always need to take part in it. Sometimes competing with yourself is enough – try to be better than yesterday’s version of you, this is the only competitor who should be taken into account.
Every time I go for a run after a longer break, I get extremely humiliated. I feel bad that I allowed my overall progress to collapse and I will have to work twice as hard to bring my old performance back. But then I remember that I am not trying to establish a new world record, nor am I applying for an Olympic team. So, is it all about sports in the end? No. It is about how you cope with inconveniences on your own and how determined you are to maintain consistency in whatever you are doing. So, one piece of advice for the upcoming summer: move your body.
Rita Wiśniewska, a third-year European Law student