Till Andy Murray outlasted Novak Djokovic in the US Open final this month,he was in danger of becoming tenniss eternal bridesmaid. The one who would always be second best. The history of sports is full of examples of players who luck out on the day of the final,or trip up at the finishing line. But even in loss,they are hardly losers. Not even the most vivid of imaginations can think of Rafael Nadal as a bridesmaid even if he went a record 160 consecutive weeks behind Roger Federer as No 2. A fiery flamenco dancer perhaps. A docile wallflower of a bridesmaid? Not at all. Given that all perennial second-besters speak of relief once they win,and want to avoid all talk of trauma,you wonder if the dramas forced on them. Instead,they seem to be in a hurry to move on from their second-place-only pasts,and start on the champagne or the six-dollar lemonade like Murray did after he finally walked the Slam aisle. Once in their stride,they can be unstoppable. Like Spain were in football,dogged by a perceived quarter-final curse. But the floodgates finally opened. Iniesta snuck one in at the World Cup,and they turned it on,just like that,at the Euro finals,making you wonder why they had ever struggled. The Germans too give the impression of being cheerful bridesmaids. Look the best,beam the smiles,catch the bouquet,go home. Holland,on the other hand,have gotten scarily cantankerous playing the most World Cup finals (three) without ever winning. Cricket has its share of second-bests. Like Germans in football,Sri Lankans turn up unfailingly in the decisive stages of one-dayer World Cups (theyve now lost the last two finals),but they did win once in 1996. The mantle of being the pitied falls on two other teams. New Zealand have made six World Cup semifinals without once taking the last two steps. The Black Caps are patted on the back and labelled over-achievers for making the last four. It must be irritating,but not many call them chokers. That jeering judgment is reserved for South Africa,who contrive a variety of ways to lose after being dubbed favourites in every edition of the World Cup. But they seem to be Spain waiting to happen to cricket. Till Goran Ivanisevic turned up thrice runner-up at Wimbledon,cute,sentimental and wild the second-besters were considered to be polite and nice. Boris Becker recently said that one of the toughest things about Stefan Edberg was that he was a nice guy,a disarming quality in a rival. Normally you dont like a rival,you want to beat him. But there was great respect for Stefan. So even when he lost to Edberg at Wimbledon,he did not seem to grudge the loss. Ditto for Namibian four-time silver medallist Frankie Fredericks,who never condescended to sledging opponents,though sprinters are notorious motor-mouths. Four athletes Linford Christie (100 metres,1992),Donovan Bailey (100 metres,1996),Mike Marsh (200 metres,1992) and Michael Johnson (200 metres,1996) left him behind,but the man remained the soft-spoken gentleman. Ironically,he had switched to track from football because he had been a bad loser,cringing each time his team-mates laughed off a defeat. Running afforded him the control over his destiny that a team sport couldnt. Yet,as the forever silver medallist,there was never a hint of a groan,as he graciously accepted the winners superiority. The saintly bridesmaid who never won gold,despite going sub-20 seconds for 200 metres more times than any other man. The most brutal joke on a sportsman would be the one played on Malaysian shuttle great Lee Chong Wei. Year after year,the Chinese have allowed him to lord over the rankings at No 1,but have not allowed him a sniff at the Olympic gold medal or the World Championship. He detests the silver lining to the dark clouds that seem to gather whenever Chinese Lin Dan appears on the horizon. Super Dan picks gold. Doesnt even bother chatting up the media. Goes home. Usain Bolts made a few second-bests feel wretched,though by the time he has chomped the space between the starting blocks and finish line,others like Yohan Blake and Asafa Powell are left with no choice but to accept his dominance. Powell held the world record for three years,and boasted of the most sub-10 seconds sprints of all time,but never won an individual world or Olympic title. His torment at the start he claimed to be reduced to jelly at the blocks saw him undergo an elaborate visualising programme,where he distracted himself with visions of engines. Bolt? He too was known to be poor at his starts. But he fooled around,showboated plenty,even flirted with a volunteer at London,and then coolly declared himself a living legend. There is no dearth of fans for the second-best though. Sham was a racing stallion,one of the most outstanding horses of the last century,but labelled as the right horse in the wrong place,always doomed to be overshadowed by his cousin Secretariat. On a day in 1973 when Secretariat set a world record,Sham managed the second fastest Derby time. Phil Dandrea,who grew up in a haze of the Secretariat legend,was intrigued by this luckless second-best horse and moved to authoring a book,Sham: Great Was Second Best. I saw Sham as a folk hero,the Everyman who works hard. He was what a lot of people could relate to. No matter what they did,how hard they worked,they didnt seem to catch a break, he said.
