STEFANIE AND THE KIDS RETURN. Time to make the Gil Water.
I sweat a lot, more than most players, so I need to begin hydrating many hours before a match. I down quarts of a magic elixir invented for me by Gil, my trainer for the last seventeen years. Gil Water is a blend of carbs, electrolytes, salt, vitamins, and a few other ingredients Gil keeps a closely guarded secret. (He’s been tinkering with his recipe for two decades.) He usually starts force-feeding me Gil Water the night before a match, and keeps forcing me right up to match time. Then I sip it as the match wears on. At different stages I sip different versions, each a different color. Pink for energy, red for recovery, brown for replenishment.
The kids love helping me mix Gil Water. They fight over who gets to scoop out the powders, who gets to hold the funnel, who gets to pour it all into plastic water bottles. No one but me, however, can pack the bottles into my bag, along with my clothes and towels and books and shades and wristbands. (My rackets, as always, go in later.) No one but me touches my tennis bag, and when it’s finally packed, it stands by the door, like an assassin’s kit, a sign that the day has lurched that much closer to the witching hour.
At five, Gil rings from the lobby.
He says, You ready? Time to throw down. It’s on, Andre. It’s on.
Nowadays everyone says It’s on, but Gil has been saying it for years, and no one says it the way he does. When Gil says It’s on, I feel my booster rockets fire, my adrenaline glands pump like geysers. I feel as if I can lift a car over my head.
Stefanie gathers the children at the door and tells them it’s time for Daddy to leave. What do you say, guys?
Jaden shouts, Kick butt, Daddy!
Kick butt, Jaz says, copying her brother.
Stefanie kisses me and says nothing, because there’s nothing to say.
IN THE TOWN CAR Gil sits in the front seat, dressed sharp. Black shirt, black tie, black jacket. He dresses for every match as if it’s a blind date or a mob hit. Now and then he checks his long black hair in the side mirror or rearview. I sit in the backseat with Darren, my coach, an Aussie who always rocks a Hollywood tan and the smile of a guy who just hit the Powerball. For a few minutes no one says anything. Then Gil speaks the lyrics of one of our favorites, an old Roy Clark ballad, and his deep basso fills the car:
Just going through the motions and pretending
we have something left to gain—
He looks to me, waits.
I say, We Can’t Build a Fire in the Rain.
He laughs. I laugh. For a second I forget my nervous butterflies.
Butterflies are funny. Some days they make you run to the toilet. Other days they make you horny. Other days they make you laugh, and long for the fight. Deciding which type of butterflies you’ve got going (monarchs or moths) is the first order of business when you’re driving to the arena. Figuring out your butterflies, deciphering what they say about the status of your mind and body, is the first step to making them work for you. One of the thousand lessons I’ve learned from Gil.
I ask Darren for his thoughts on Baghdatis. How aggressive do I want to be tonight? Tennis is about degrees of aggression. You want to be aggressive enough to control a point, not so aggressive that you sacrifice control and expose yourself to unnecessary risk. My questions about Baghdatis are these: How will he try to hurt me? If I hit a backhand cross-court to start a point, some players will be patient, others will make a statement right away, crush the ball up the line or come hard to the net. Since I’ve never played Baghdatis outside of our one practice set, I want to know how he’ll react to conservative play. Will he step up and jack that routine crosscourt, or lie back, bide his time?
Darren says, Mate, I think if you get too conservative on your rally shot, you can expect this guy to move around it and hurt you with his forehand.
I see.
As far as his backhand goes, he can’t hit it easily up the line. He won’t be quick to pull that trigger. So if you find he is hitting backhands up the line, that definitely means you’re not putting enough steam on your rally shot.
Does he move well?
Yes, he’s a good mover. But he’s not comfortable being on the defensive. He’s a better mover offensively than defensively.
Hm.
We pull up to the stadium. Fans are milling about. I sign a few autographs, then duck through a small door. I walk down a long tunnel and into the locker room. Gil goes off to consult with security. He always wants them to know exactly when we’re going out to the court to practice, and when we’re coming back. Darren and I drop our bags and walk straight to the training room. I lie on a table and beg the first trainer who comes near me to knead my back. Darren ducks out and returns five minutes later, carrying eight freshly strung rackets. He sets them atop my bag. He knows I want to place them in the bag myself.
I obsess about my bag. I keep it meticulously organized, and I make no apologies for this anal retentiveness. The bag is my briefcase, suitcase, toolbox, lunchbox, and palette. I need it just right, always. The bag is what I carry onto the court, and what I carry off, two moments when all my senses are extra acute, so I can feel every ounce of its weight. If someone were to slip a pair of argyle socks into my tennis bag, I’d feel it. The tennis bag is a lot like your heart—you have to know what’s in it at all times.
It’s also a question of functionality. I need my eight rackets stacked chronologically in the tennis bag, the most recently strung racket on the bottom and the least recently strung on the top, because the longer a racket sits, the more tension it loses. I always start a match with the racket strung least recently, because I know that’s the racket with the loosest tension.
My racket stringer is old school, Old World, a Czech artiste named Roman. He’s the best, and he needs to be: a string job can mean the difference in a match, and a match can mean the difference in a career, and a career can mean the difference in countless lives. When I pull a fresh racket from my bag and try to serve out a match, the string tension can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Because I’m playing for my family, my charitable foundation, my school, every string is like a wire in an airplane engine. Given all that lies beyond my control, I obsess about the few things I can control, and racket tension is one such thing.
So vital is Roman to my game that I take him on the road. He’s officially a resident of New York, but when I’m playing in Wimbledon, he lives in London, and when I’m playing in the French Open, he’s a Parisian. Occasionally, feeling lost and lonely in some foreign city, I’ll sit with Roman and watch him string a few rackets. It’s not that I don’t trust him. Just the opposite: I’m calmed, grounded, inspired by watching a craftsman. It reminds me of the singular importance in this world of a job done well.
The raw rackets come to Roman in a great big box from the factory, and they’re always a mess. To the naked eye they look identical; to Roman they’re as different as faces in a crowd. He spins them, back and forth, furrows his brow, then makes his calculations. At last he begins. He starts by removing the factory grip and putting on my grip, the custom grip I’ve had since I was fourteen. My grip is as personal as my thumbprint, a by-product not just of my hand shape and finger length but the size of my calluses and the force of my squeeze. Roman has a mold of my grip, which he applies to the racket. Then he wraps the mold with calfskin, which he pounds thinner and thinner until it’s the width he wants. A millimeter difference, near the end of a four-hour match, can feel as irritating and distracting as a pebble in my shoe.
With the grip just so, Roman laces in the synthetic strings. He tightens them, loosens them, tightens them, tunes them as carefully as strings on a viola. Then he stencils them and vigorously waves them through the air, to let the stenciling dry. Some stringers stencil the rackets right before match time, which I find wildly inconsiderate and unprofessional. The stencil rubs off on the balls, and there’s nothing worse than playing a guy who gets red and black paint on the balls. I like order and cleanliness, and that m
eans no stencil-specked balls. Disorder is distraction, and every distraction on the court is a potential turning point.
Darren opens two cans of balls and shoves two balls in his pocket. I take a gulp of Gil Water, then a last leak before warm-ups. James, the security guard, leads us into the tunnel. As usual he’s squeezed into a tight yellow security shirt, and he gives me a wink, as if to say, We security guards are supposed to be impartial, but I’m rooting for you.
James has been at the U.S. Open almost as long as I have. He’s led me down this tunnel before and after glorious wins and excruciating losses. Large, kind, with tough-guy scars that he wears with pride, James is a bit like Gil. It’s almost as though he takes over for Gil during those few hours on the court, when I’m outside Gil’s sphere of influence. There are people you count on seeing at the U.S. Open—office staffers, ball boys, trainers—and their presence is always reassuring. They help you remember where and who you are. James is at the top of that list. He’s one of the first people I look for when I walk into Arthur Ashe Stadium. Seeing him, I know I’m back in New York, and I’m in good hands.
Ever since 1993, when a spectator in Hamburg rushed onto the court and stabbed Monica Seles during a match, the U.S. Open has positioned one security guard behind each player’s chair during all breaks and changeovers. James always makes sure to be the one behind my chair. His inability to remain impartial is endlessly charming. During a grueling match, I’ll often catch James looking concerned, and I’ll whisper, Don’t worry, James, I’ve got this chump today. It always makes him chuckle.
Now, walking me out to the practice courts, he’s not chuckling. He looks sad. He knows that this could be our last night together. Still, he doesn’t deviate from our pre-match ritual. He says the same thing he always says:
Let me help you with that bag.
No, James, no one carries my bag but me.
I’ve told James that when I was seven years old I saw Jimmy Connors make someone carry his bag, as though he were Julius Caesar. I vowed then and there that I would always carry my own.
OK, James says, smiling. I know, I know. I remember. Just wanted to help.
Then I say: James, you got my back today?
I got your back, baby. I got it. Don’t worry about nothing. Just take care of business.
We emerge into a dusky September night, the sky a smear of violet and orange and smog. I walk to the stands, shake hands with a few fans, sign a few more autographs before practicing. There are four practice courts, and James knows I want the one farthest from the crowd, so Darren and I can have a little privacy as we hit and talk strategy.
I groan as I guide the first backhand up the line to Darren’s forehand.
Don’t hit that shot tonight, he says. Baghdatis will hurt you with that.
Really?
Trust me, mate.
And you say he moves well?
Yes, quite well.
We hit for twenty-eight minutes. I don’t know why I notice these details—the length of an afternoon shower, the duration of a practice session, the color of James’s shirt. I don’t want to notice, but I do, all the time, and then I remember forever. My memory isn’t like my tennis bag; I have no say over its contents. Everything goes in, and nothing ever seems to come out.
My back feels OK. Normal stiffness, but the excruciating pain is gone. The cortisone is working. I feel good—though, of course, the definition of good has evolved in recent years. Still, I feel better than I did when I opened my eyes this morning, when I thought of forfeiting. I might be able to do this. Of course tomorrow there will be severe physical consequences, but I can’t dwell on tomorrow any more than I can dwell on yesterday.
Back inside the locker room I pull off my sweaty clothes and jump in the shower. My third shower of the day is short, utilitarian. No time for coaching or crying. I slip on dry shorts, a T-shirt, put my feet up in the training room. I drink more Gil Water, as much as I can hold, because it’s six thirty, and the match is nearly one hour off.
There is a TV above the training table, and I try to watch the news. I can’t. I walk down to the offices and look in on the secretaries and officials of the U.S. Open. They’re busy. They don’t have time to talk. I step through a small door. Stefanie and the children have arrived. They’re in a little playground outside the locker room. Jaden and Jaz are taking turns on the plastic slide. Stefanie is grateful, I can tell, to have the children here for distraction. She’s more keyed up than I. She looks almost irritated. Her frown says, This thing should have started already! Come on! I love the way my wife spoils for a fight.
I talk to her and the children for a few minutes, but I can’t hear a word they’re saying. My mind is far away. Stefanie sees. She feels. You don’t win twenty-two Grand Slams without a highly developed intuition. Besides, she was the same way before her matches. She sends me back into the locker room: Go. We’ll be here. Do what you need to do.
She won’t watch the match from ground level. It’s too close for her. She’ll stay in a skybox with the children, alternately pacing, praying, and covering her eyes.
PERE, ONE OF the senior trainers, walks in. I can tell which of his trays is for me: the one with the two giant foam donuts and two dozen precut strips of tape. I lie on one of six training tables, and Pere sits at my feet. A messy business, getting these dogs ready for war, so he puts a trash can under them. I like that Pere is tidy, meticulous, the Roman of calluses. First he takes a long Q-tip and applies an inky goo that makes my skin sticky, my instep purple. There’s no washing off that ink. My instep hasn’t been ink-free since Reagan was president. Now Pere sprays on skin toughener. He lets that dry, then taps a foam donut onto each callus. Next come the strips of tape, which are like rice paper. They instantly become part of my skin. He wraps each big toe until it’s the size of a sparkplug. Finally he tapes the bottoms of my feet. He knows my pressure points, where I land, where I need extra layers of padding.
I thank him, put on my shoes, unlaced. Now, as everything begins to slow down, the volume goes up. Moments ago the stadium was quiet, now it’s beyond loud. The air is filled with a buzzing, a humming, the sound of fans rushing to their seats, hurrying to get settled, because they don’t want to miss a minute of what’s coming.
I stand, shake out my legs.
I won’t sit again.
I try a jog down the hall. Not bad. The back is holding. All systems go.
Across the locker room I see Baghdatis. He’s suited up, fussing with his hair in front of a mirror. He’s flicking it, combing it, pulling it back. Wow, he has a lot of hair. Now he’s positioning his headband, a white Cochise wrap. He gets it perfect, then gives one last tug on his ponytail. A decidedly more glamorous pre-match ritual than cushioning your toe calluses. I remember my hair issues early in my career. For a moment I feel jealous. I miss my hair. Then I run a hand over my bare scalp and feel grateful that, with all the things I’m worried about right now, hair isn’t one of them.
Baghdatis begins stretching, bending at the waist. He stands on one leg and pulls one knee to his chest. Nothing is quite so unsettling as watching your opponent do pilates, yoga, and tai chi when you can’t so much as curtsy. He now maneuvers his hips in ways I haven’t dared since I was seven.
And yet he’s doing too much. He’s antsy. I can almost hear his central nervous system, a sound like the buzz of the stadium. I watch the interaction between him and his coaches, and they’re antsy too. Their faces, their body language, their coloring, everything tells me they know they’re in for a street fight, and they’re not sure they want it. I always like my opponent and his team to show nervous energy. A good omen, but also a sign of respect.
Baghdatis sees me and smiles. I remember that he smiles when he’s happy or nervous, and you can never tell which. Again, it reminds me of someone, and I can’t think who.
I raise a hand. Good luck.
He raises a hand. We who are about to die …
I duck into the tunnel for one last w
ord with Gil, who’s staked out a corner where he can be alone but still keep an eye on everything. He puts his arms around me, tells me he loves me, he’s proud of me. I find Stefanie and give her one last kiss. She’s bobbing, weaving, stomping her feet. She’d give anything to slip on a skirt, grab a racket, and join me out there. My pugnacious bride. She tries a smile but it ends up a wince. I see in her face everything she wants to say but will not let herself say. I hear every word she refuses to utter: Enjoy, savor, take it all in, notice each fleeting detail, because this could be it, and even though you hate tennis, you might just miss it after tonight.
This is what she wants to say, but instead she kisses me and says what she always says before I go out there, the thing I’ve come to count on like air and sleep and Gil Water.
Go kick some butt.
AN OFFICIAL OF THE U.S. OPEN, wearing a suit and carrying a walkie-talkie as long as my forearm, approaches. He seems to be in charge of network coverage and on-court security. He seems to be in charge of everything, including arrivals and departures at LaGuardia. Five minutes, he says.
I turn to someone and ask, What time is it?
Go time, they say.
No. I mean, what time? Is it seven thirty? Seven twenty? I don’t know, and it suddenly feels important. But there are no clocks.
Darren and I turn to each other. His Adam’s apple goes up and down.
Mate, he says, your homework is done. You’re ready.
I nod.
He holds out his fist for a bump. Just one bump, because that’s what we did before my first-round win earlier this week. We’re both superstitious, so however we start a tournament, that’s how we finish. I stare at Darren’s fist, give it one decisive bump, but don’t dare lift my gaze and make eye contact. I know Darren is tearing up, and I know what that sight will do to me.