There was a moment, there in the middle of it all—when he and I were together in secret and winning titles and taking Wimbledon side by side—that it felt like fate. I could look back at my own history with men and see that every single one of them had been a domino that had to fall in order to trigger this one.
For the months we were together, I finally belonged to somebody. And it was just as good as I’d made it out to be.
During the summer of 1983, I demolished Paulina Stepanova every time we played each other. Her shoulder, once just an excuse, was now deteriorating rapidly. She’d fallen thirty spots in the rankings.
Just before the US Open, she announced she was retiring. I was shocked that the woman who had once been my greatest adversary would become a footnote.
Upon retirement, Stepanova had only nine Slams to her name. I had twelve. And now she was done.
The morning after the announcement, Brandon called down to room service and had them bring up breakfast. When it arrived, he congratulated me on burying Stepanova once and for all.
“It’s over,” he said. “There’s no more rivalry. There’s no question who came out the victor.”
I put my hands over my face, my smile so wide I had to contain it.
He kissed me, and I thought, I have everything.
Like a complete fucking dope.
We got caught in late July. He left Nina shortly after, and the tabloids reported it all that August—which was when the cruelty of what I was doing became obvious.
It was on the cover of every magazine in the checkout aisle. Love–Love: Brandon and Carrie Set Up Love Nest at Beverly Hills Hotel, Leaving Nina Riva Brokenhearted and Brandon and Carrie Take a Battle Axe to Nina Riva’s Heart.
And yet I didn’t end it.
Not when the paparazzi started following us or when NowThis showed a photo of Nina crying outside a grocery store in Malibu. Not even when he tried to go back to her and she rejected him. He came crawling back to me, and I stuck with him then too. I was too far gone, too desperate to believe I’d found the real thing.
And after all that, he was the one who ended it when he left me for another woman in December.
It took a while for me to dust myself off. But even then, I couldn’t ignore the power of the hatred of the fans in the stands. The tabloid headlines only got worse. Things like Carrie Soto: Lonely At The Top. And then, perhaps worst of all, Who Could Love a Battle Axe?
I was used to being disliked, but nothing prepared me for being mobbed by paparazzi as I was coming out of a restaurant, having them casually ask things like “How do you feel about the fact that people think you’re a whore?”
I wore sunglasses and baseball caps outside. I ran from anybody with a camera. I hid in hotel rooms. I barely looked up into the crowds at my matches. Sportsade dropped me from their commercials; ticket sales for tournaments were down, and people were reporting that it was my fault.
I felt a million things.
But I felt one thing the strongest: Whatever soft parts of my heart I had tentatively exposed to Brandon, it had been a mistake. I would never again be that type of fool.
1984–1989
A lot of people hated me in 1984. But I kept my head down, and I took three Grand Slams. I set a record for most weeks at number one. And winning, I’ve found, does sway a lot of people. I seemed to have won some of their affection back.
In 1985, I took Wimbledon for the third year in a row. In 1986, I won it and the US Open.
Going into Wimbledon in ’87, I was twenty-nine years old. Everyone was watching to see if I could win my twentieth Slam and set the record for most singles Slam titles. The papers were all saying that surely I was nearing the end of my career.
I won the final match in straight sets. And there it was. My world record.
Just shy of thirty and I was not just great. But the greatest. Of all time.
As I stood there on the court, watching the officials walk toward me with the plate, my entire career flashed in front of me.
Doing drills with my father as a kid. Playing Mary-Louise Bryant. Winning juniors, entering the main draws. Climbing up the rankings, improving my slice, learning that jump, defeating Stepanova once and for all. Domination.
I was now the most decorated tennis player by nearly every measure. Most Grand Slam singles titles ever. Most weeks at number one for any player in the history of the tour. Most singles titles, most aces over the course of a career. Most years ending number one. Highest-paid female athlete of all time.
I was the Carrie Soto I had always believed I could be.
I accepted the trophy that day as I had accepted all the others—my face stoic, my speech short. But this time, as I waved and turned to leave, I had to hobble off the court.
My left knee was killing me. It was often aching and tender all day. I’d get sharp pains when I bent it too far or put too much weight on it. I was getting cortisone shots, but they weren’t doing enough. It was beginning to slow me down on the court. And while I’d been able to withstand the pain through sheer force of will up until now, I knew I couldn’t do so much longer.
“Hija,” my father said over the phone. “You need surgery.”
“Stop,” I said, my voice clipped.
But I knew he was right. Before the US Open, my knee was so bad that I had to have painkillers injected directly into it, and I still lost in the semis to Suze Carter. Early the next year, I had to pull out of the Australian Open.
I took some time off, and when I came back, I could not get a foothold. In all of ’88, I did not win a single title.
* * *
—
Just before the start of Wimbledon in 1989, Lars sat me down at a hotel gym in London.
“It’s over, Carrie,” he said. “I have done all I can do. You have achieved what you will achieve.”
“No, it’s not over. I just…” I looked down at the floor and then back up at him, ready to admit what I had long been denying. “I need to get the surgery. Then I can come back.”
“Come back so you can lose more? Let everyone see the queen is dead?”
I flinched. “The queen is not dead,” I said.
Lars nodded his head. “Carrie, your body, your skills, they always had an expiration date. And it is now. You are thirty-one. It is time.”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe it is. But maybe it’s not.”
“It is.”
I looked him in the eye, starting to sense what was happening. “You already have another player lined up,” I said. “You’ve already decided.”
“It does not matter. Your body is done, Carrie,” he said. “I do not want to stick around to see what less-than-perfect version of yourself awaits us on the other end of your surgeries. I’m not interested in it.”
“I could bounce back. I could have the best parts of my career ahead of me.”
“Not in your thirties,” he said. “Don’t make me humor you about that. If you continue after Wimbledon, it will be without me as your coach.”
Lars stood up and left. And I sat there in the stale, cold gym, staring at a stationary bike. My knee ached just thinking about riding it.
Still, I ignored him and entered the main draw at Wimbledon. For the first time in almost ten years, I did not make it to the round of sixteen.
I fell so far in the rankings that I would have been unseeded at the US Open.
“Get surgery and see where you are,” my father said on the phone. I was in New York, preparing to enter the Open as a wild card. He was back in L.A., getting settled into the compound I had bought for the two of us. A main house for me, a guest house for him, a pool, and a tennis court. “You won’t know if your knee can be rehabilitated unless you try.”
“And take the chance I’ll lose again? In front of all of them?” I said. “Do you see how much they are loving this? My failure? No. I won’t give it to them. No.”
“So what are you going to do?” he said.
“I am not discussing this with you,” I said. “Ever. It’s not for you to say.”
“Okay,” he said. “Está bien.”