Open: An Autobiography

The win helps me regain the number one rank. Once again I’ve dethroned Pete, but it’s just another reminder of when I didn’t, couldn’t, beat him.

In the semis I face Chang. I know I can win, but I also know that I will lose. In fact I want to lose, I must lose, because Becker is waiting in the final. The last thing I need right now is another holy war with Becker. I couldn’t handle that. I wouldn’t have the stomach for it, which means I’d lose. Given a choice between Becker and Chang, I’d rather lose to Chang. Besides, it’s always easier psychologically to lose in the semis than in the final.

So I’ll lose today. Congratulations, Chang. I hope you and your Messiah will be very happy.

But losing on purpose isn’t easy. It’s almost harder than winning. You have to lose in such a way that the crowd can’t tell, and in a way that you can’t tell - because of course you’re not wholly conscious of losing on purpose. You’re not even half conscious. Your mind is tanking, but your body is fighting on. Muscle memory. It’s not even all of your mind that purposely loses, but a breakaway faction, a splinter group. The deliberately bad decisions are made in a dark place, far below the surface. You don’t do those tiny things you need to do. You don’t run the extra few feet, you don’t lunge. You’re slow to come out of stops. You hesitate to bend or dig. You get handsy, not using your legs and hips. You make a careless error, compensate for the error with a spectacular shot, then make two more errors, and slowly but surely you slide backward. You never actually think, I’m going to net this ball. It’s more complicated, more insidious.

At the post-match news conference Brad tells reporters: Today, Andre hit the wall.

True, I think. So very true. But I don’t tell Brad that I hit the wall every day. It would crush him to know that today the wall felt good, that I kissed the wall, that I’m glad I lost, that I’d rather be on that plane back to Los Angeles than lacing them up for a rematch with our old friend B. B. Socrates. I’d rather be anywhere but here - even Hollywood, my next stop. Since I lost, I’ll get home just in time to watch the Super Bowl, followed by the special hour-long episode of Friends, featuring Brooke Shields.

19

PERRY GRINDS ME EVERY DAY, asking what’s wrong, what’s the matter. I can’t tell him. I don’t know. More accurately, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to admit to Perry or myself that a loss to Pete can have this kind of lingering effect. For once I don’t want to sit with Perry and try to unravel the skeins of my subconscious. I’ve given up on understanding myself. I have no interest in self-analysis. In the long, losing struggle with myself, I’m tanking.

I go to San Jose and get annihilated by Pete. Definitely not what the doctor ordered. I lose my temper several times during the match, cursing at my racket, screaming at myself. Pete looks bemused. The umpire penalizes me for swearing.

Oh, you like that? Here, take this.

I serve a ball into the upper deck.

I go to Indian Wells, lose to Chang in the quarters. I can’t face the post-match press conference. I skip out, pay a hefty fine. I go to Monte Carlo. I lose to Alberto Costa of Spain in fifty-four minutes. As I walk off the court I hear whistles, catcalls. They may as well be coming from inside my heart. I want to yell at the crowd: I agree!

Gil asks me, What is it?

I tell him. I come right out with it. Since losing to Pete at the U.S. Open, I’ve lost the will.

Then let’s not do this, Gil says. We’ve got to be clear on what we’re doing.

I want to quit, I say, but I don’t know how - or when.

At the 1996 French Open I’m coming unglued. I’m screaming at myself all through my first-round match. I receive an official warning. I scream louder. I’m penalized a point. I’m one motherfucking cocksucker away from getting DQ’d for the tournament. Rain starts to fall, and during the delay I sit in the locker room and stare straight ahead as if hypnotized. When play resumes I outlast my opponent, Jacobo Díaz, whom I can’t see. He’s as blurry and watery as the reflections in the rain puddles along the alleys of the court.

Beating Díaz merely delays the inevitable. In the next round I lose to Chris Woodruff, from Tennessee. He always reminds me of a country-western singer, and plays as if he’d rather be performing at a rodeo. He’s even more awkward on clay, and to compensate he gets aggressive, especially on his backhand. I can’t counter his aggression. I make sixty-three unforced errors. He reacts with unbridled joy, and I gaze at him, coveting not his victory but his enthusiasm.

Sportswriters accuse me of tanking, not going for every ball. They never get it right. When I tank, they say I’m not good enough; when I’m not good enough, they say I tank. I nearly tell them I wasn’t tanking, that I was torturing myself for not being good enough. Whenever I know that I don’t deserve to win, that I’m unworthy of winning, I torture myself. You could look it up.