Where Did All the Love Go?

Every gym class in my elementary school ended the same way. We formed two lines and shook hands with the other team. I went to a small all-girls school in New York City. We certainly weren’t professional athletes, yet our teachers repeatedly instilled in us the value of sportsmanship. Losing graciously is hard, especially at age six—and it is equally challenging not to be boastful in one’s victories.

Sportsmanship has immeasurable benefits: it can nurture relationships, increase emotional well-being, and foster uncanny character development and integrity. Arguably, showing respect and sportsmanship also leads to better collaboration and results.

A study of nearly 4,700 NCAA college soccer matches found that teams with players who received a red card during a match lost 67% of those matches. This correlation suggests a possible link between discipline and performance. “Winning is an attitude, and negative energy toward competitors will only work against you,” Nicole Branagh, a professional beach volleyball player who competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, told Experience Life. You gain a lot from being respectful.

Being a good sport becomes more crucial with age, yet among some of the nation’s brightest and most influential individuals, respect for opponents is lacking. American politicians, for example, could learn a thing or two from sports etiquette.

For the athletes competing in the 2026 U.S. Open Tennis Championships, sportsmanship seemed to come naturally. These players had a certain eloquence that a bunch of tired kindergarteners after gym class certainly did not have.

During the quarterfinals, Frances Tiafoe won the longest match in U.S. Open history. When the referee called the final point after five hours of playing, Tiafoe did not immediately burst into celebration. He went straight to his opponent, Alex Michelsen, and embraced him. While Michelsen cried, Tiafoe held him. He paused his victory to console his competitor. Of course, Tiafoe still had his earned moment of celebration, but he put Michelsen first.

Similar camaraderie was seen in the women’s bracket. As Anastasia Potapova fell and hurt her knee on the deciding point against Mirra Andreeva, Andreeva immediately ran to Potapova’s aid. Andreeva helped Potapova, who was limping, to a chair. She called for ice. Andreeva ultimately won the match, but she walked off the court humbly, barely celebrating in deference to her injured friend.

The final exchange between Alexander Zverev and Ben Shelton stuck with Nate Berman ’30, who played tennis at his high school and attended the tournament. “They both, at the end of the game, walk[ed] over to each other’s teams in their boxes and congratulate[d] them,” said Berman.

The players of the U.S. Open, among others, are the gold standard for sportsmanship. They are gracious and empathetic. They put their opponent before their own vanity. They are the antithesis of the behavior that covers every contemporary headline—the behavior of our politicians.

Athletes and politicians are quite similar. “Both athletes and politicians are individuals who are working towards a specific goal, whether it be pushing a policy, all the way to winning an election,” Mitchell Lee ’28, a player on Harvard’s men’s tennis team, explained to the “Harvard Independent.”

Today, it is hard to imagine that sportsmanship ever existed in politics. Most election concessions are far from graceful, as demonstrated by those of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

In 2017, Clinton made a point of telling the world that she deserved to win the election. At an event in Los Angeles months after the election, she claimed that the election was stolen from her. Much like a kindergartener, Clinton protested an election that went against her interests.

Trump took a similar approach upon losing the 2020 presidential election. He immediately sent out an all-caps post on X (formerly known as Twitter) declaring himself the winner: “I WON THE ELECTION, GOT 71,000,000 LEGAL VOTES. BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE.” Throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, Trump kept claiming votes had been counted incorrectly. He repeatedly cited his campaign’s challenges to the electoral process—many of which the Supreme Court dismissed.

These responses from both parties are just two examples of the decline of political sportsmanship. There are many more. Politicians are no longer willing to celebrate their opponent. Instead, they seem to treat them with indifference, as if they exist in a different universe. A public issue frequently morphs into a theatrical meltdown that my six-year-old self could have staged after losing capture the flag—again.

Our leaders need to look beyond themselves to our athletes, the players who rule the court with uncanny grace and humility. “I think that politicians could learn how to compete fiercely while still respecting their opponents and the rules,” Lee said.

“In tennis, you are expected to control your emotions, accept decisions you may disagree with, and take responsibility for your own behavior. You can compete for every point without attacking the character of the person across the net,” Lee continued. “Politics would really benefit from that same balance. They [politicians] can disagree strongly on the issues, but maintain respect, integrity, and self-control in the heat of the moment.”

All it takes is one candidate to embrace their opponent—whether the loser or the winner—to set a new standard. A small gesture can reverberate—and perhaps one day revive sportsmanship in politics.

Zoë Macklowe ’30 (zmacklowe@college.harvard.edu) attends the U.S. Open primarily to visit the food court.