I have just finished watching one of the epic tennis matches of all-time. For those of you that do not follow tennis, it was The 2019 Championships at Wimbledon Final. The players were Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
It was the first time that a Wimbledon Championship has ever been decided by a fifth set tiebreaker. The match lasted nearly five hours. I have to admit that I was rooting for my favorite player Roger Federer, but despite leading for most of the match and winning in most of the statistical columns his opponent Djokovic won the match.
You see that tennis, unlike most other sports, has a unique scoring method. Scoring in tennis is not cumulative as it is in most other sports. You can statistically score more points and win more games and still not win the match. No matter how big a lead you may have the match can always be won or lost.
You see, there is no clock to wind down, no shot clock, no timeouts, no way to protect a lead without continuing to score more points. As I watched the game it was easy to find certain points, certain opportunities that seemed as if they would cement the victory for either player. But in tennis it hard to look back at a match and say that one point or one call was the turning point. In tennis regardless of the score until the last point is played there is no victory, no defeat.
As I was watching the match I kept saying to myself that the last point didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that one player just missed their shot by a millimeter. It didn’t matter that the last shot was mishit. The only thing that mattered was the next point. Even when one player was down 40 – Love, the next point was all that mattered. The next point was a chance to redeem yourself.
As human beings, we often dwell too much on the past. We often let our failures dictate our future. Sometimes it is a bad investment, a failed relationship, a lost job opportunity. We worry that the clock is going to run out before we succeed.
We should always look at our lives in much the same way that a tennis match is scored. You can lose a set, you can win a game. But until the match is over there is always the next point.
In life, like tennis. The most important point is always the next one.
Joe Domino is a Realtor® serving the Phoenix & Scottsdale metro area. You can find more great information by visiting his website at www.Scottsdale-AZHomes.com.
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