Open: An Autobiography

At Indian Wells, I face Pete again. If I can beat him I’ll be within an inch of the top spot. I’m in peak condition, but we play a sloppy match, filled with unforced errors. Each of us is distracted. Pete is still distressed about his coach. I’m worried about my father, who’s having open-heart surgery in a few days. This time, Pete manages to rise above his turmoil, while I let mine consume me. I lose in three sets.

I race to the UCLA Medical Center and find my father strapped to machines with long tubes. They remind me of the ball machine of my youth. You can’t beat the dragon. My mother hugs me. He watched you play yesterday, she says. He watched you lose to Pete.

I’m sorry, Pops.

He’s on his back, drugged, helpless. His eyelids flutter open. He sees me and gestures with his hand. Come closer.

I lean in. He can’t speak. He has a tube in his mouth and down his throat. He mumbles something.

I don’t understand, Pops.

More gestures. I don’t know what he’s trying to tell me. Now he’s getting angry. If he had the strength he’d get out of this bed and knock me out.

He motions for a pad and pen.

Tell me later, Pops.

No, no. He shakes his head. He must tell me now.

The nurses hand him a pad and pen. He scrawls a few words, then makes a brushing gesture. Like an artist, gently brushing. At last I understand.

Backhand, he’s trying to say. Hit to Pete’s backhand. You should have hit more to Pete’s backhand.

Vork your wolleys. Hit harder.

I stand and feel an overpowering urge to forgive, because I realize that my father can’t help himself, that he never could help himself, any more than he could understand himself.

My father is what he is, and always will be, and though he can’t help himself, though he can’t tell the difference between loving me and loving tennis, it’s love all the same. Few of us are granted the grace to know ourselves, and until we do, maybe the best we can do is be consistent. My father is nothing if not consistent.

I put my father’s hand at his side, force him to stop gesturing, tell him that I understand.

Yes, yes, to the backhand. I’ll hit to Pete’s backhand next week in Key Biscayne. And I’ll beat his ass. Don’t worry, Pops. I’ll beat him. Now rest.

He nods. His hand still flapping against his side, he closes his eyes and falls asleep.

The next week I beat Pete in the final of Key Biscayne.

After the match we fly together to New York, where we’re due to catch a flight to Europe for the Davis Cup. But first, upon landing, I drag Pete to the Eugene O’Neill Theater to see Brooke as Rizzo in Grease. It’s the first time Pete has seen a Broadway show, I think, but it’s my fiftieth time seeing Grease. I can recite every word of We Go Together, a trick I’ve performed, deadpan, to much laughter on the Late Show with David Letterman.

I like Broadway. I find the ethos of the theater familiar. The work of a Broadway actor is physical, strenuous, demanding, and the nightly pressure is intense. The best Broadway actors remind me of athletes. If they don’t give their best, they know it, and if they don’t know it, the crowd lets them know it. All this is lost on Pete, however. From the opening number he’s yawning, fidgeting, checking his watch. He doesn’t like the theater, and he doesn’t get actors, since he’s never pretended anything in his life. In the quasi-darkness of the footlights, I smile at his discomfort. Somehow, forcing him to sit through Grease feels more satisfying than beating him in Key Biscayne. We go together, like rama lama lama …

IN THE MORNING we catch the Concorde to Paris, then a private plane to Palermo. I’m barely settled into my hotel room when the phone rings.

Perry.

In my hand, he says, I hold the latest rankings.

Hit me with it.

You - are number one.

I’ve knocked Pete off the mountaintop. After eighty-two weeks at number one, Pete’s looking up at me. I’m the twelfth tennis player to be number one in the two decades since they started keeping computer rankings. The next person who phones is a reporter. I tell him that I’m happy about the ranking, that it feels good to be the best that I can be.

It’s a lie. This isn’t at all what I feel. It’s what I want to feel. It’s what I expected to feel, what I tell myself to feel. But in fact I feel nothing.

17

I SPEND MANY HOURS ROAMING the streets of Palermo, drinking strong black coffee, wondering what the hell is wrong with me. I did it - I’m the number one tennis player on earth, and yet I feel empty. If being number one feels empty, unsatisfying, what’s the point? Why not just retire?

I picture myself announcing that I’m done. I choose the words I’ll speak at the news conference. Several images then come to mind. Brad, Perry, my father, each disappointed, aghast. Also, I tell myself that retiring won’t solve my essential problem, it won’t help me figure out what I want to do with my life. I’ll be a twenty-five-year-old retiree, which sounds a lot like a ninth-grade dropout.

No, what I need is a new goal. The problem, all this time, is that I’ve had the wrong goals.