French Open and shut case for Federer

A teeny-weeny schoolgirl with braces in place and freshness of youth came for internship the other day.

This Class XI student (yes, schools are having such small kids intern too nowadays!) happened to be a sports, especially tennis, enthusiast who was in love with Maria Sharapova as much as she was with unbeatable Rafael Nadal.

She told me that Roger Federer at 31 was too much of an uncle to win any grand slam, particularly on clay court. As it turns out now, the girl was right. While Sharapova has reached the ultimate round (despite the age if I can point out) and may even lift the Cup by the time this column reaches you, Federer behaved much beyond his age and played like a retiree against World No 1 Novak Djokovic.

He was nowhere in contention, lost set points, failed to consolidate his serves and returned home with a bag so full of unforced errors that it is sure to break his aching back. All this, much to the chagrin of millions of his supporters who saw him go down like a rookie in the semi-finals of French Open.

Going by the world rankings, however, it is a perfect setting. World No 1 and 2 will be locked in title clash and Federer as World No 3 will watch from the sidelines. Such a scenario would have been fine had Federer gone down fighting and not the way that surprised even Novak. It was not as if Djoker was playing flawless tennis. His service was being broken consistently, his unforced errors were not slim and his baseline shots not exactly a treat to watch. All he had to do last Friday was to stand and stare Federer decimating himself without much help from his opponent.

The point here is that Federer has started looking more and more mortal, much like Sachin Tendulkar has been doing in cricket since 2011. Both are icons in their own right and both hold celestial positions in the galaxy of human stars. Yet, their sporting trajectories have shown a consistent dwindle as the years catch up with the two.

And it is here that one wonders if really Federer should retire before others take it all away from him in as dismal a manner as Novak did at the French Open. It is heartbreaking to see this kind of non-play from a genius like Federer and one is sure he must be feeling the same agony. About time then, Roger!

Ektaa, value the viewer

Never has a committed viewer’s helplessness towards unwanted changes in her most loved serials been more stark than it will be this week. One is told that all sorts of awful things are about to happen to Sony TV’s blockbuster show Bade Achhey Lagte Hain.

Not only will Priya and Ram Kapoor, from whose languid but mature romance the serial drew its life and breath, split but, most annoyingly, Ram will marry Priya’s young and pregnant sister after she is dumped by his brother Sid.

Now why should Ektaa Kapoor and her team go in for such a drastic change is a question no one from Balaji Telefilms is able to convincingly answer. All they say is that they have done well to have sustained for 150 episodes and that they really don’t know how to carry on with the romance any longer.

One solution is they can end the show, something that the viewers will prefer to being led into a relationship they can’t even imagine to be with, let alone escort to another 150 episodes.

Ektaa, whose television acumen is well known to one and all, cannot hide behind the veneer of dried up imagination. After all, she had promised that the romance between Priya and Ram will always be the centrepoint of the show. And her creative team has done pretty well to have carried on so beautifully for such a long time after Ram and Priya got married. It will be only too cussed for Ektaa to risk viewer indignation and carry on with this revolutionary break which has very little chance to go down well with the massive audience number this hatke show has garnered, thanks to the ever evolving relationship between its two main protagonists.

Other than that, isn’t it a bad precedent to take the viewer so much for granted? Ektaa has already admitted that the upcoming changes in the show have got her a deluge of hate mails. And yet, Balaji Telefilms’ in-house surveyors believe viewers want a change! Besides being contradictory, the move also smacks of a brazen disregard of the customers and a full-scale manipulation of the followers who have no say in an asset they have made out of BALH by supporting it over the year.

Come to think of it, the idea of giving BALH a six-month break and coming up with a new season is not bad at all. In fact, it will act as an incentive for the viewers as also give the creative at Balaji a break to come up with fresh ideas. Many shows have done so. KBC has been a hit in every single season thus far. So is Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, Indian Idol, Roadies, Laughter Challenge and even Bigg Boss to a certain extent. If reality shows can do it, so can the soap dish and who better than Ektaa to light this torch of change?

Source: The Sunday Pioneer, 10 June, 2012