Competition as dialogue? A tennis player objects.

By Phil Lawler (
biography –
articles– E-mail ) | January 30, 2024

In speak yesterday at a Spanish tennis clubPope Francis made the remarkable assertion that the game is “not only a battle, but also a dialogue.”

Having been a competitive tennis player in my youth, I was flattened by this observation. Even more astonishing was the Pope’s attempt to reject the idea that tennis “is above all linked to the desire to defeat the opponent.” Let me assure you that when I played a match, my goal was to win, which necessarily meant that my opponent would lose. I assumed he had the same goal, and if he hadn’t, I would have considered it an insult, to me and to the game. When the Pope said that tennis “is not not a battle”, he was describing a game that I don’t know.

Curiously, Pope Francis began his speech by sending his congratulations to the winning Italian athletes the day before. For what? Because they won, and that’s the point.

Each Pontiff occasionally hosts a visiting sports team for a private audience and tries to say something about the real goals of the competition. In such cases, Pope Francis has generally spoken about teamwork: a subject that lends itself well to moral teaching. But since tennis players typically compete as individuals (with doubles play being a secondary option), the theme of teamwork would not fit. He therefore looked at the origins of the game and declared: “it is an expression of the founders’ openness to the good that can come from outside and to dialogue with other cultures”. Reading this line, I had to laugh.

Walk onto a tennis court and what do you see? Lines that the ball and/or player cannot cross. Hit a powerful shot that lands an inch beyond the baseline and you receive no credit. Nothing good comes from outside.

And dialogue? Tennis, like other games, has very strict, arbitrary – dare I say rigid – rules of play? The ball cannot bounce twice. Your racket cannot touch the net. Why not? Because those are the rules; they are not questioned.

To be honest, I assume that when he talked about “dialogue” in tennis, Pope Francis was talking about dialogue between players. But again, the idea does not correspond to my experience. If a tennis player speaks to his opponent while the ball is in play, this is considered gamesmanship: an offense against the spirit of the game.

Certainly, a game of tennis can be an enjoyable social occasion, giving two or four people a chance to get together, with a plan to chat (or engage, if you prefer) between points. But these friendly conversations take place at the net, before the next serve, that is to say not when the tennis is actually played. It’s not easy to talk to someone who is running back and forth, chasing balls, at 120 feet.

Granted, it’s also possible to have spent a pleasant hour hitting balls back and forth, not counting points, trying to keep the rally going. Perhaps two players would train in this way, giving each other advice from time to time and thus engaging in what the Pope described as “a dialogue which involves our efforts and allows us to improve.” But if they just hit balls back and forth, that’s not the game of tennis. And if they do train, what is their ultimate goal? To better “gain the upper hand over the adversary”.

If you’re keeping score, it’s to determine who wins. If you participate in a sporting competition and you are not trying to win, something is wrong. You may have reasons not to compete honestly, but whatever those reasons are, they are extraneous to the game. Competition is, by definition, an effort to prevail.

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He edited several Catholic magazines and wrote eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is news director and senior analyst for CatholicCulture.org. See full biography.