I DON’T ARGUE sports with many people. After all, many people don’t know sports.
It’s really the reason why I mostly keep to myself at events. I sit down away from the crowds when covering both basketball and tennis.
Heck, I even try to stay out of the lunchroom at work when cricket or athletics are showing live.
And I don’t talk about Darian King in public.
Thankfully, there’s no reason for me to now, considering his performances this season have been speaking for themselves.
Yet you’d be very surprised about the type of things I actually used to hear.
I remember last year when Darian was coming back from wrist injury and one of my superiors who is heavy in politics asked why I wasted so much time writing about a man who wins at the Futures level.
It took everything out of me not to respond, but I still managed not to, opting instead to smirk and return to my computer to start another article with the words “Darian King”.
Of course King went on to win his very first ATP Challenger title against a former top 50 player no less, just a couple weeks later in a season that saw him win three of those, reach the Olympics and become the highest rated Bajan player on tour.
Foolish to respond
There was a time in the same lunchroom that an information technology specialist asked me why I made such a fuss about him when, as they said, “Darian King can’t beat Serena”.
Unfortunately I was just as foolish to respond, bringing up this little known anecdote about Darian’s time as Sloane Stephens’ hitting partner.
Apparently in 2013, right after her historic Australian Open win over said Serena Williams, Sloane Stephens was “feeling herself” to the point that then coach Roger Smith couldn’t get through to her.
The story goes that Smith turned to Darian to bring Stephens down a notch right before King handed her the most deflating of 6-0, 6-0 defeats.
Of course that did little to sway the argument in my favour so I promptly ended it, and my lunch, before going back to my desk to write the words “Darian King”.
Just this January I stopped National Sports Council’s awards committee chairman Patrick Best to ask him how did they manage to get it all wrong again by not only overlooking Darian for Sports Personality Of The Year, but for Senior Outstanding Male Sportsman, too.
But his sentiments were worse than the others, even though you’d expect otherwise, as he told me “King doesn’t perform at the highest level of his sport”.
Standing in utter disbelief, I merely smiled and walked away, refusing to give his ill-founded conclusion any credence in public by responding.
Only that time I couldn’t go to immediately write the words “Darian King”.
Winning hand
And I didn’t have to.
As if he heard the words himself, King played a hand in winning all three rubbers that gave Barbados their first overseas Group II tie victory in Paraguay just three weeks later.
Apparently that wasn’t enough, as the 24-year-old then qualified for his second ATP 250 event by making the main draw of the Memphis Open, where he stunned former world No. 17 Bernard Tomic in straight sets.
It just so happened to be the first ATP 250 victory by any Bajan, the great Martin Blackman included.
Then last weekend happened. In no short order, Darian qualified for his first ATP Masters event at Indian Wells and then justified his appearance by first knocking out world No. 55 Nikoloz Basilashvili in straight sets before taking the first set from Gael Monfils.
Sure Monfils won 12 of the last 13 games, but not before going into an all-out slugfest with a man slotted 120 places behind him in the ATP rankings.
Oh, and that man broke the world No.11 thrice in that first set.
Just when you hoped that Darian hadn’t plateaued our king of swing showed us otherwise, displaying clear signs of improvement with uncharacteristic power from the baseline on numerous inside-out and crosscourt forehand winners.
It’s not like he’s close to the finished product either.
At just 24, King still has time to add more power to both his serve and forehand, considering we’re seeing greats like Roger Federer and Serena Williams still winning big well into their 30s.
I mean there’s nothing telling me that Darian isn’t going to be a top 60 player.
After all, he has beaten three of them already and went toe to toe with a fourth.
I was even tempted to call Patrick Best this weekend and tell him this, but then I remembered he may want to argue that case.
And I really don’t argue sports with many people.
