Midway through lunch with Novak Djokovic he still hasn’t touched his food. It concerns me. I tell the world’s best tennis player that I will talk to him about my own game to give him some time to eat. It’s generally pretty wretched, I say, but it gets particularly ugly when I am 30-40 down and I have just missed my first serve, at which point I feel I am looking down into an existential black hole, sense my self-esteem ebb away, and invariably send the ball careering outside the lines. So what does it feel like for him in the “clutch” moments, which have rather more at stake?
我與諾瓦克?德約科維奇(Novak Djokovic)的午餐已過去了一半時間，然而他還沒碰過面前的食物。我心里感到不安。于是我對這位世界排名第一的網球選手說，我要開始聊聊我自己打網球的經歷，好給他些時間吃飯。總體來說，我的戰績相當慘烈，但當我剛錯失自己首個發球局，跟著又以30比40的比分落后時，局面變得更加糟糕。那一刻，我覺得自己腳下出現了一個黑洞，我感到自尊在一絲絲流走，手上不由自主地揮拍將球急速送向界外。那么當他遇到“關鍵”時刻（比我的自然要危急得多），他是什么感覺呢？