The power of perseverance

Published by Linda Pearce

Matt Ebden achieved a career-best result with his run to the final of the ATP 250 in Newport. Photo: Getty Images
Matt Ebden’s run to the final of Newport is a stunning testimony to the power of perseverance.

Seven years ago, a proud and patriotic Matt Ebden wrote an acrostic poem to celebrate his initiation into Australia’s Davis Cup team. This week, any literary composition the thoughtful 29-year-old may have penned en route from qualifying to his debut ATP World Tour singles final in Newport, Rhode Island, would have had a very different theme.

Perseverance, perhaps.

Ebden lost the grasscourt decider, 6-3, 7-6 (4) to American top seed John Isner. It was a smallish event, an ATP 250, and Ebden has had bigger paydays, despite earning a very welcome US$50,295 to almost double his 2017 prize money. But, having started the year ranked 699th following a six-month break due to knee surgery, Perth-based Ebden is back on the cusp of the top 150 again. Which means entry into grand slam qualifying, and touching distance, almost, of the return to double-figures he craves.

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“It’s a lot of reward for a lot of hard work, a lot of years of sacrifice,’’ said the South African-born right-hander who turned pro more than a decade ago and peaked at No.61 in 2012. “It’s disappointing (to lose), but at the same time I have to be happy with my week.”

Very happy.

For every Roger Federer – whose own, far plumper, version of lean times came when his gap between grand slam triumphs stretched to an unaccustomed four years after 2012 Wimbledon – there are countless Ebdens toiling away off-Broadway. Struggling with their bodies or their form, or both, not where they were or where they yearn to be, but determined to press on for as long as the dream can sustain them. Certainly, the prizemoney at the game’s lower levels will not.

Ebden and Federer shared the practice court during the Hopman Cup in January, and it was soon after that the West Australian’s comeback march began. In some ways he has been fortunate, he concedes, for serious injuries had hitherto been rare.

Contrast that with the likes of Juan Martin del Potro, who was billed as the future of tennis following his momentous US Open breakthrough in 2009, when he beat Rafael Nadal and Federer in succession, the world seemingly at his – very large – feet at the age of just 20. Instead, his has been a cautionary tale of cruel and relentless wrist injuries: four surgeries having robbed the popular Argentine of so many of his prime years. Now back inside the top 30, having been forced to remodel his backhand and quietly readjust his ambitions, the man known fondly as “Delpo” remains one of the game’s lost talents at the same time he also rates among its most determined.

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Yet few have returned from the depths of injury and despair as emphatically as Serena Williams, the 23-time major champion whose 2007 Australian Open title, won when she was both unseeded and under-conditioned, remains among the finest and most improbable of her many achievements. The 36-year-old’s next comeback will be from maternity leave. That one seems like a safe bet, too.

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