In chaos there is no error

I still have images behind my eyes of the more than five hours of tennis between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Beyond the physical stamina and the beauty and difficulty of the game, I'm left with the importance of the rules and the white lines that demarcate the game, the double faults and unforced errors, the net and the apologies, the acceptance of silence at a given moment by the crowd. The unanimous respect for all of this, for that network of rules and customs, the elegance of the ritual, the competitive hunger and admiration of the two players, as well as the zeal with which they accepted essential rules for the game to exist, the mathematics and physics at the service of talent and craft.

The world—alienated by sport and competition—seems plunged into chaos, and, as the song reminds us, in chaos there is no mistake. In the absence of agreed-upon, customary rules, in the face of disorder, there is nothing to indicate a right or wrong way of doing things. In chaos, whatever you do, you are never wrong. Nor are you right. You let things happen, unpredictably. Within these coordinates, you can't play or build anything. Without rules, there is no fun, there is no right or wrong, there are no facts, only opinions. In chaos, it doesn't matter if the ball hits the line, it doesn't matter if Roland Garros hits the line, it doesn't matter if democracy hits the line. You don't know what to expect. A green light might let you cross the street, or that truck might run you over. Everything is possible; everything is good without being bad, and vice versa.

In this chaotic world, the only thing that has remained standing has been the sporting competition.

In this chaotic world where truth and facts no longer matter, the only thing that has remained standing has been sports competition, the rules, the calendars, the team colors in the different disciplines.

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The future has been swallowed up by the unpredictable and by an accelerated, technologically incomprehensible present. All we're left with is sport, rules, offside, the three-point shot, passivity, and the ace on the serve. And the lesson that we need a framework of agreed-upon rules and regulations, an ethical system of values ​​upon which to build an unforgettable match of more than five hours of tennis, like a Gothic cathedral, so slight yet so imposing.