The core creed: the true opponent is the self; tennis as tragic self-transcendence

pivotal · UNDATED (standing E.T.A. doctrine; dramatized on an ice-cream walk with Mario, ~YDAU)

• When: UNDATED (Schtitt's standing doctrine; delivered to Mario on a Comm. Ave. walk to Allston)
• What: Schtitt's central formulation, and "his one great irresistible attraction in the eyes of Mario's late father": the enfolding boundary of the game is not the baselines and not the opponent but the self. The opponent across the net is "not the foe: he is more the partner in the dance," the occasion for meeting the self. "Tennis's beauty's infinite roots are self-competitive" — you compete with your own limits to transcend the self, which is why tennis is "an essentially tragic enterprise": you seek to vanquish the very limited self whose limits made the game possible. All life is the same: "junior athletics is but one facet of the real gem: life's endless war against the self you cannot live without." When Mario presses whether vanquishing the self is the same as self-destruction — "what's the difference between tennis and suicide, life and death, the game and its own end?" — Schtitt concedes "Maybe no different, so," except for "the chance to play."