Open: An Autobiography

I swallow a sleeping pill and down a vodka, and when I open my eyes the plane is taxiing to the gate in Melbourne. Brad drives us to the hotel, the Como. My head is in a fog as thick as mashed potatoes. A bellboy shows me to my room, which has a piano and a spiral staircase with shiny wood steps in the center. I tap a few keys on the piano, stagger up the steps to bed. I fall backward. My knee hits the sharp edge of a metal balustrade and tears open. I tumble down the stairs. Blood is everywhere.

I call Gil. He’s there in two minutes. He says it’s the patella, the kneecap. Bad cut, he says. Bad bruise. He bandages me, puts me on the couch. In the morning he shuts me down.

He doesn’t let me practice. We have to be careful with that patella, he says. It’ll be a miracle if the thing holds up for seven matches.

Limping noticeably, I play the first round with a bandage on my knee and a film over my eyes. It’s plain to fans, sportswriters, commentators, that I’m not the player I was a year ago. I drop the first set and quickly fall behind two breaks in the second. I’m going to be the first defending champion since Roscoe Tanner to lose a first-round match in a slam.

I’m playing Gaston Etlis, from Argentina, whoever that is. He doesn’t even look like a tennis player. He looks like a substitute schoolteacher. He has sweaty ringlets and a sinister five-o’clock shadow. He’s a doubles guy, only playing singles because by some miracle he qualified. He looks astonished to be here. A guy like this, I normally beat him in the locker room with one hard stare, but he’s up a set on me and leading in the second set. Jesus. And he’s the one suffering. If I look pained, he looks panicked. He looks as if he has a ninety-pound bullfrog lodged in his throat. I hope he has the balls to close me out, to finish me off, because I’m better off right now with a loss and an early exit.

But Etlis gags, freezes, makes shockingly bad decisions.

I start to feel weak. I shaved my head this morning, full-on, bare-scalp bald, because I wanted to punish myself. Why? Because it still rankles that I ruined Brooke’s cameo on Friends, because I broke all my trophies, because I came to a slam without putting in the work - and because I lost to Pete at the U.S. Fucking Open. You can’t fool the man in the mirror, Gil always says, so I’m going to make that man pay. My nickname on the tour is The Punisher, because of the way I run guys back and forth. Now I’m hell-bent on punishing my most intractable opponent, myself, by burning his head.

Mission accomplished. The Australian sun is flame-broiling my skin. I scold myself, then forgive myself, then press reset and find a way to tie the second set. Then I win the tiebreak.

My mind is chattering. What else can I do with my life? Should I break up with Brooke?

Should I marry her? I lose the third set. Again Etlis can’t stand prosperity. I win the fourth set in another tiebreak. In the fifth set Etlis wears out, gives up. I’m neither proud nor relieved. I’m embarrassed. My head looks like a blood blister. Put a blister on his brain.

Later, reporters ask if I worry about sunburn. I laugh. Honestly, I tell them, sunburn is the least of my worries. I want to add: I’m already mentally fried. But I don’t.

In the quarters I play Courier. He’s beaten me six straight times. We’ve had terrific battles, on the court and in the newspapers. After he beat me at the 1989 French Open, he complained about all the attention I get. He said he felt as if he forever plays second fiddle to me.

Sounds like an insecurity problem, I told reporters.

To which Courier shot back: I’m insecure?

He’s also been chippy about my ever-changing appearance and psyche. Asked what he thought of the new Agassi, he once said: You mean the new Agassi, or the new new Agassi?

We’ve patched things up since then. I’ve told Courier that I root for his success, that I consider him a friend, and he’s said the same. But there’s still a curtain of tension between us, and there may always be, at least until one of us retires, since our rivalry dates back to pu-berty, back to Nick.

The match starts late, delayed by the women’s quarters. We get on the court close to midnight and play nine games on serve. So this is how it’s going to be. Then the rain falls. Officials could close the roof, but it would take forty minutes. They ask if we’d rather come back tomorrow. We both say yes.

Sleep helps. I wake refreshed, wanting to beat Courier. But it’s not Courier on the other side of the net - it’s a pale facsimile. Despite being up two sets to love, he looks tentative, burned out. I recognize that look. I’ve seen it in the mirror many times. I swoop in for the kill. I win the match, beating Courier for the first time in years.

When reporters ask about Courier’s game I say: He’s not where he wants to be.

I want to say: There’s a lot of that going around.