Open: An Autobiography

From the moment we land, we’re out of sync. We can’t get comfortable. We can’t agree how to spend our time. I want to relax. Brooke wants to go scuba diving. And she wants me to go with her. Which means taking a class. I tell her that of all the things I want to do on my honeymoon, taking a class is right up there with having a colonoscopy.

While watching Friends.

She insists.

We spend hours at the pool, an instructor teaching us about wet suits and tanks and masks. Water keeps leaking into my mask because I have a five-o’clock shadow and my bristles prevent the mask from lying flush against my skin. I go up to the room and shave.

When I come back down the instructor says the final phase of training is an underwater card game. If you can sit calmly playing cards at the bottom of the pool, and if you can play a full game without needing to surface, then you’re a scuba diver. So here I am, in full scuba gear, in the middle of the Caribbean, sitting at the bottom of a pool and playing Go Fish. I don’t feel like a scuba diver. I feel like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate. I climb out of the pool and tell Brooke, I can’t do this.

You never want to try anything new.

Enjoy. Go out to the middle of the ocean if you want. Say hi to the Little Mermaid. I’ll be in the room.

I walk into the kitchen and order a large plate of French fries. Then I go up to the room, kick off my shoes, stretch out on the couch, and watch TV for the rest of the day.

We leave the island paradise three days early. Honeymoon over.

I’M IN D.C. FOR THE 1998 LEGG MASON. Another July heat wave, another withering D.C. tournament. Other players are carping about the heat, and ordinarily I’d be carping too, but I feel only a cool gratitude and a steely resolve, which I maintain in part by waking early every morning, writing out my goals. After putting them on paper, saying them aloud, I also say aloud: No shortcuts.

Just before the tournament starts, during a final practice with Brad, I give a halfhearted effort. Perry drives me back to the hotel. I stare out the window, silent.

Pull over, I say.

Why?

Just pull over.

He steers onto the shoulder.

Drive two miles ahead and wait for me.

What are you talking about? Are you crazy?

I’m not done. I didn’t give my best today.

I run two miles through Rock Creek Park, the same park where I gave my rackets away in 1987. With every step I’m close to passing out, but I don’t care. This run, even if it brings on heatstroke, will give me peace of mind tonight in that all-important ten minutes before I fall asleep. I now live for that ten minutes. I’m all about that ten minutes. I’ve been cheered by thousands, booed by thousands, but nothing feels as bad as the booing inside your own head during those ten minutes before you fall asleep.

When I get to the car, my face is bright purple. I slide into the passenger seat, turn up the air-conditioning, and smile at Perry.

That’s how we do it, he says, handing me a towel as he pulls away.

I reach the final. I face Draper again. I remember wondering not too long ago how I ever beat him. I remember shaking my head in disbelief that I’d ever gotten past him. One of the low points of my life. Now I take him out in fifty minutes, 6:2, 6:0. I win the tournament for the fourth time.

At the Mercedes-Benz Cup I reach the semis without losing a set and ultimately win the whole thing. At the du Maurier Open in Toronto I face Pete again. He plays great in the first set but wears down in the second. I beat him, which costs him the number one ranking and moves me up to number nine.

I meet Krajicek in the semis. He’s still feeling good about winning the 1996 Wimbledon, the only Dutchman ever to do it. In the process he beat Pete in the quarters, handing Pete his first Wimbledon loss in years. But I’m not Pete, and I’m not me. Krajicek is down a set, serving at 3:4 in the second set, love:40. Triple break point. I rope the best return of my adult life. The ball seems to clear the net by a centimeter and leaves a smoking skid mark. It’s a true old-fashioned rug-burner. Krajicek shuts his eyes, shoves out his racket, hits a wild volley. It could go anywhere, he has no idea where it might go, but it’s a winner. If his racket had been open another half degree, the ball would have hit somebody in the front row and I would have broken serve and taken control of the match. Instead he wins the point, holds serve, beats me in three sets, ends my streak of consecutive matches at fifteen. In the old days I’d have had trouble getting over it. Now I tell Brad: That’s tennis, right, BG?