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?
我与诺瓦克•德约科维奇(Novak Djokovic)的午餐已过去了一半时间，然而他还没碰过面前的食物。我心里感到不安。于是我对这位世界排名第一的网球选手说，我要开始聊聊我自己打网球的经历，好给他些时间吃饭。总体来说，我的战绩相当惨烈，但当我刚错失自己首个发球局，跟着又以30比40的比分落后时，局面变得更加糟糕。那一刻，我觉得自己脚下出现了一个黑洞，我感到自尊在一丝丝流走，手上不由自主地挥拍将球急速送向界外。那么当他遇到“关键”时刻（比我的自然要危急得多），他是什么感觉呢？