A 9/11 tennis battle marks a major teenage and multicultural victory

Last Saturday, September 11, 2021, was the 20th anniversary of “Nine Eleven”, the infamous date when Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda super-terrorists staged a horrendous attack on the USA, killing nearly 3,000 people. Americans commemorate this horror solemnly every year.

This year’s “Nine Eleven”, however, ended with another unforgettable event for me. This was the epic battle between two teenagers, Leyla Fernandes of Canada and Emma Raducanu of Great Britain, at the Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium in Flushing Meadows, New York. You may wonder why I describe a tennis match in such lofty terms as “epic battle”.

Battle indeed it was, as every sports match at that level is, and even blood was drawn. Emma Raducanu had a serious injury and had to receive medical attention on court before proceeding to win the contest. “Epic” implies large and grand proportions, universal, global or even cosmic significance and affecting the fortunes of communities, nations or humanity in general.

Epic poems, for example, like Greek Homer’s Iliad or Roman Virgil’s Aeneid, are about either the fall of great states or the founding of great empires. I studied the Aeneid for my high school Latin classes, and I still remember its opening line, “Arms and the man I sing” (arma virumque cano). I also recall the episode of the love affair between Aeneas, the hero, and Dido, the African queen of Carthage.

Aeneas eventually abandons her, to follow his call of founding the Roman Empire, and Dido immolates herself on a huge pyre. Aeneas watches with dubious remorse, as he crosses the Mediterranean with his fleet, the cruel flames that consume his used and abandoned partner. This reminds one of the things that men often do, especially to women, in their search of fame and glory.

New York tennis battle

Anyway, we were saying that the New York tennis battle between teenagers Emma and Leyla was epic on several of the counts we suggested. It was large and grand for both the players and spectators. To me, it also signified a major paradigmatic shift in the status of our teenagers and young adults. Finally and most significantly, that match was a major triumph for the international, cosmopolitan and multicultural identity that I keep advocating as the strongest antidote to the idiotic, xenophobic racism and exclusivism that we keep witnessing in many corners of the world.

First, however, let me come clean. You know that I am a sports buff. When it comes to tennis, I am a total and irredeemable addict. I was only a mediocre club player and a coach of dubious competence in my active Nairobi days. But my enthusiasm for the sport was, and still is, boundless.

Back to the hard facts, however, Leyla and Emma’s encounter, its elevated nature may be seen even in concrete facts and figures. The US Open Tennis Tournament is one of what is called the Grand Slam tour, the best in the sport, comprising four events. The other three are the Australian Open, the French Open at Roland Garros in Paris and Wimbledon in London.

You have to have a proven playing record in order to play in these events. It is rare that two relatively young and inexperienced players, like our two lasses, reach the finals of any of these events. The play is followed closely by large numbers of spectators, both at the venues and on various media. The Emma Raducanu vs Leyla Fernandes final, for example, was watched live by a humongous estimated audience of nine million viewers, including British Queen Elizabeth, on television, in addition to livestreams on various appliances. To the full capacity crowd of spectators at Flushing Meadows, and especially New Yorkers, the match was an uplifting relief from the gloom of memories of Bin Laden’s nine-eleven and the slowly subsiding covid-19 ravages.

Incidentally, the tennis game at this level is a professional affair, and the winners earn jaw-dropping “prizes”. Emma Raducanu, the first female British winner of the US event in 44 years, took home US$2.5 million. In addition, knowledgeable people estimate she could earn over $100 million in the next few years, in the form of commercial endorsements.

What do you do with that kind of money when you have just done your A-Levels, living with your parents and waiting to get into college? Emma says she will buy herself a pair of “air pods”. These are a kind of wireless earphones. Do you see here a beautiful illustration of the youthful paradox of competence and innocence?

Growing fast

Our children, and grandchildren, are growing up incredibly fast, physically, mentally and, hopefully, spiritually. This is obviously due to the much more comfortable and empowering environment in which we raise them, compared to our own backgrounds. In the area of knowledge, for example, the millennials do not have to wait to be “taught” facts and techniques. It is all available to them at the touch of a button.

Parents, coaches and teachers have to rethink their parenting and teaching roles. Our youth are remarkably knowledgeable and competent. We elders have to avoid the mistake of treating them as “mere children” and dictating to them.

Instead, we should act more as friends and comrades, listening to them and humbly advising them on how to analyse and organise their knowledge for the best outcomes. This, I think, is the best we can do for such teenage prodigies as the education activist Malala Yousafzai, environmental campaigners Greta Thunberg and Jennifer Uchendu, and now sports wonders Leyla Fernandes and Emma Raducanu.

Finally, you will have noted that neither Fernandes nor Radicanu sound “characteristically” Canadian or British. Well, both Fernandes and Raducanu are children of immigrants. Fernandes’ father is from Ecuador, and Raducanu’s father is from Romania and her mother is from China. A poignant moment in Raducanu’s victory remarks after the historic match was when she greeted her Chinese supporters in fluent Mandarin.

Assigning the future of the world to multinationalism and multiculturalism is realistic thinking.

Prof Bukenya is a leading East African scholar of English and literature. [email protected]