Open: An Autobiography

I wonder if I’m ready. I meditate on my own tennis mortality. But a week later, I’m in Washington, D.C., playing Kafelnikov in the final. I beat him 7:6, 6:1, and afterward I give his coach, Larry, a look. A promise is a promise.

I realize I’m not done. I have promises yet to keep.

I’M ON THE VERGE of being number one again. This time it’s not my father’s goal, or Perry’s, or Brad’s, and I remind myself that it’s not mine either. It would be nice, that’s all. It would cap off the comeback. It would be a memorable milestone on the journey. I sprint up one side of Gil Hill, down the other. I’m training for the number one ranking, I tell Gil. And for the U.S. Open. And, in a funny way, for Stefanie.

I can’t wait for you to meet her, I say.

She arrives in New York and I whisk her upstate to a friend’s nineteenth-century farmhouse. It has fifteen hundred acres and several large stone fireplaces. In every room we can sit and stare into the flames and talk. I tell her I’m a firebug. Me too, she says. The leaves are just starting to turn, and each window frames a postcard view of red-gold woods and mountains. There is no one around for miles.

We spend our time walking, hiking, driving into nearby towns, puttering in antique shops.

At night we lie on the couch and watch the original Pink Panther. After half an hour we’re both laughing so hard at Peter Sellers that we have to stop the tape and catch our breath.

She leaves after three days. She has to go on holiday with her family. I beg her to come back for the final weekend of the U.S. Open. To be there for me. In my box. I wonder if I’m jinxing myself, presuming that I’ll be playing on the final weekend, but I don’t care.

She says she’ll try.

I reach the semis. I’m scheduled to play Kafelnikov. Stefanie phones and says she’ll come. But she won’t sit in my box. She’s not ready for that.

Well then, let me arrange a seat for you.

I’ll find my own seat, she says. Don’t worry about me. I know my way around that place.

I laugh. I guess so.

She watches from the upper deck, wearing a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes. Of course the CBS cameras pick her out of the crowd, and McEnroe, doing commentary, says U.S. Open officials should be ashamed, not getting Steffi Graf a better seat. I beat Kafelnikov again. Tell Larry I said hello.

In the final I face Martin. I thought it would be Pete. I said publicly that I wanted Pete, but he pulled out of the tournament with a bad back. So it’s Martin, who’s been there, across the net, at so many critical junctures. At Wimbledon, in 1994, when I was still struggling to absorb Brad’s teachings, I lost to Martin in a nip-and-tuck five-setter. At the U.S. Open that same year, Lupica predicted that Martin would upend me in the semis, and I believed him, but still managed to beat Martin and win the tournament. In Stuttgart, in 1997, it was my appalling first-round loss to Martin that finally pushed Brad to the breaking point. Now it’s Martin who will be a test of my newfound maturity, who will show if the changes in me are fleeting or meaningful.

I break him in the very first game. The crowd is solidly behind me. Martin doesn’t hang his head, however, doesn’t lose any poise. He makes me work for the first set, then comes out stronger in the second, taking it in a tight tiebreak. He then wins the third set - an even tighter tiebreak. He leads two sets to one, a commanding lead at this tournament. No one ever comes back from such a deficit in the final here. It hasn’t happened in twenty-six years. I see in Martin’s eyes that he’s feeling it, and waiting for me to show the old cracks in my mental armor. He’s waiting for me to crumble, to revert to that jittery, emotional Andre he’s played so often in years past. But I neither fold nor yield. I win the fourth set, 6:3, and in the fifth set, with Martin looking spent, I’m on the balls of my feet. I win the set, 6:2, and walk away knowing I’m healed, I’m back, exulting that Stefanie was here to see it. I’ve made only five unforced errors in the final two sets. Not once all day have I lost my serve, the first five-setter of my career in which I haven’t lost my serve, and it comes as I capture my fifth slam. When I get back to Vegas I want to put five hundred on number five at a roulette table.

In the press room, one reporter asks why I think the New York crowd was pulling for me, cheering so loudly.

I wish I knew. But I take a guess: They’ve watched me grow up.

Of course fans everywhere have watched me grow up, but in New York their expectations were higher, which helped accelerate and validate my growth.

It’s the first time I’ve felt, or dared to say aloud, that I’m a grownup.

STEFANIE FLIES WITH ME TO VEGAS. We do all the typical Vegasy things. We gamble, see a show, take in a boxing match with Brad and Kimmie. Oscar De La Hoya vs. Félix Trinid-ad - our first official public date. Our coming-out party. The next day a photo of us holding hands, kissing at ringside, appears in newspapers.