Open: An Autobiography

I’M READY FOR A MONTH IN A HOT TUB, but my next match looms, and my opponent is playing like a man possessed. Blake. He smoked me the last time we met, in D.C., by getting and staying aggressive. Everyone says he’s grown steadily better since that day.

My only hope is that he doesn’t play aggressive this time out. Especially since it’s cooler.

In cool weather the court in New York plays slower, which favors a guy like Blake, who’s so damned fast. On a slow court Blake can get to everything, and you can’t, and thus he can make you press. You feel a need to do more than you normally do, and from there everything goes haywire.

The moment we step onto the court, my worst nightmare comes true. Blake is Mr. Aggressive, standing inside the baseline on my second serves, taking full cuts off both wings, making me feel urgency right from the opening minute. He smothers me in the first set, 6:3.

In the second set he gives me a second helping of the same: 6:3.

Early in the third set the match takes on shades of Malisse. Except I’m Malisse. I can’t beat this guy, I know I can’t, so I may as well just try to give a good show. Freed from thoughts of winning, I instantly play better. I stop thinking, start feeling. My shots become a half-second quicker, my decisions become the product of instinct rather than logic. I see Blake take a step back and register the change. What just happened? He’s been beating my brains in for seven straight rounds, and at the end of the eighth I land one sneaky punch, wobbling him just as the bell rings. Now he’s walking to his corner, unable to believe that his hobbled, demoralized opponent still has life.

Blake has a huge following in New York, and they’re all here tonight. Nike, which no longer endorses me, gives his supporters T-shirts and urges them to cheer. When I outplay Blake in the third, they stop cheering. When I win the set, they fall silent.

Throughout the fourth set, Blake’s panicking, no longer being aggressive. I can see him thinking, can almost hear him thinking: Damn, I can’t do anything right.

I win the fourth set.

Now that Blake has seen the benefits of my not thinking, he decides he’s going to try it. As the fifth set unfolds, he turns off his brain. At last, after nearly three hours, we meet on equal terms. We’re both on fire, and his on-fire is slightly better than my on-fire. In the tenth game he has a chance to serve out the match.

Then he starts thinking again. The contrarian brain. He presses, I hit three first-class returns, break him, and the crowd changes its mind. They chant, An-dre, An-dre.

I serve. I hold.

During the changeover the stadium sounds like a rock concert. My ears are ringing. My temples are pounding. It’s so loud that I wrap my head in a towel.

He serves. He holds. We’re going to a tiebreak.

I’ve heard old-timers say that the fifth set has nothing to do with tennis. It’s true. The fifth set is about emotion and conditioning. Slowly I leave my body. Nice knowing you, body. I’ve had several out-of-body experiences over my career, but this one is healthy. I trust my skill, and I step out of its way. I remove myself from the equation. At match point, 6:5, I hit a solid serve. He returns to my forehand. I hit a quality ball to his backhand. He’s moving around it, and I know - mistake. If he’s running around my quality ball, that means he’s pressing. He’s not thinking clearly. He’s putting himself out of position, letting the ball play him. He’s not giving himself an opportunity to hit the best possible shot. Thus I know that one of two things is about to happen. He’s going to be handcuffed by my ball and hit it weakly. Or he’s going to be forced into an error.

Either way, I have a pretty good idea the ball is coming right here. I look at the spot where it’s sure to land. Blake wheels, throws his lower torso out of the way and coldcocks the ball. It lands ten feet from where I expected. Winner.

I was completely wrong.

I do the only thing I can do. Walk back. Prepare for the next point.

At six:all we have a murderous rally, backhand to backhand, and I’m a big loose bag of rattling nerves. In a ten-stroke backhand rally, you know somebody’s going to raise the stakes at any moment, and you’re always sure it’s going to be your opponent. I wait. And wait. But with each stroke, Blake doesn’t raise the stakes. So it falls to me. I step in as if I’m going to cane the ball and instead I hit a backhand drop shot. I’m all in.

There are times in a match when you want to put just a solid, serviceable swing on the ball, but your blood is so full of adrenaline that you hit it big. This happens often to Blake, not with his swing but his speed. He runs faster than he means to run. He feels so much urgency that he sprints to a ball and gets there sooner than he anticipated. This is what happens now.