“Just get to the point,” I say. “I don’t need the Socratic method.”
My father frowns again. “You have always excelled at shot selection and anticipation. You understand where the ball is going, how it will bounce. And you know how to construct a point—three, four, even five returns down the line. You have years of learning this. So let your body—which has done this a thousand times more than she has—guide you. You have instincts she doesn’t have yet. Use them.”
I sit down next to him. “You’re saying play smarter.”
“I’m saying control the court. When it’s your serve, don’t try to prove you can hit as fast. Set up the shots to benefit a slower game, not a quicker one. Because you know you’re not the quicker player this time. And be economical in your movements, anticipate where the ball is going. Conserve your energy and let her tire herself out. Antonovich is the rare bird that if this goes three sets, you will probably beat her. Just stay still and slow her down. At every juncture. Even at the changeovers, stretch the time limit. Make her frustrated, make her wait. Don’t play for speed. It’s not how you win this one.”
I am not sure he’s right. I’m not sure muscle memory and shot selection is going to bridge the gap between Antonovich’s speed and mine. Only me running as fast as possible can do that.
“I…I don’t know, Dad.”
“Carrie, listen to me. I have gone over this in my head a thousand times.”
“Dad, I need to get through Antonovich to get to Chan. I have to. I can’t fail this time.”
“I know you feel that way,” he says. “Trust me, I know that. That’s why I’ve been up the past two nights, going over old tape in my hotel room. I’m desperate for you. You have to know how much…”
I wait for him to finish his sentence, but he seems to have given up on finding the words.
“How much what?”
He sighs. “How much I worry,” he says, resting his back against the bench. “I worry about how you will feel if you do not win this match, or the semifinals. Or the final.”
I nod.
“I do not want to see the look on your face if it were to come to pass that Chan wins. If she takes your record. I do not think I could bear to see it.”
“I know, me neither.”
“No, I’m saying I don’t think I could bear to see what it would do to you,” he says. “My feelings won’t change one way or another if you win, hija. But…”
He looks down and then back up at me. “Sometimes I think you don’t understand the heartache I feel when I see you lose,” he says, catching my eye and not letting go. “Knowing how badly you want it, knowing how much your soul needs it. Sometimes I think it is enough to break me.”
“Dad…” I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. “I will be okay.”
“Is that true?” he asks.
I close my eyes and let my shoulders fall.
There have been so many times in my life when I’ve lost and it was not okay. Times when I paced in my hotel room for more than twenty-four hours straight; times I didn’t sleep or eat for days. After I lost at Wimbledon in ’88, I flew home and shut myself in my bedroom and didn’t come out for two and a half weeks.
“It is my responsibility to take care of myself,” I tell him. “Whether I win or lose. That’s on me.”
My father shakes his head with a smile. “It will never matter,” he says, “whose responsibility is what. My heart hurts when you hurt because you are my heart.”
I inhale sharply.
“So please, listen to me, and let’s work on your first serve, let’s work on your shot selection, let’s construct some points here, hypothetically, against her.”
I nod. I get what he’s saying, and he is right about some of it. “Yeah, okay,” I say. But I also do need to meet her speed. And if I’m not there yet, I need to spend as much of today as I can getting there. “I’ll do your thing, but also, I do need to work on my speed. So let’s do both.”
My father frowns slightly. “All right.”
“Can we get a second ball machine? Having them both coming at me? I’m gonna rise to the occasion. Watch me.”
My father nods, and within twenty minutes, I’m hitting balls hurtling at me from both machines. I spend a couple hours at it. Forehand to backhand, up to the net, back at the baseline. I meet the ball time and again.
At the end of the day, as I’m coming off the court, my father raises his eyebrows at me and I shine. I can tell he’s impressed, maybe even a little surprised.
“I don’t think Antonovich’s speed is going to be a problem,” I say.
“Bien, pichona,” he says.
“It’s so close, Dad.”
My father pulls me into him, putting his arm around my shoulders and kissing the top of my head. “Go out there tomorrow and take it,” he says.
SOTO VS. ANTONOVICH
1995 French Open
Quarterfinals
Natasha Antonovich is five eleven and extremely thin. Her visor, shirt, and tennis skirt are all bright white. She elects to serve first without a hint of emotion, her face an arid desert where no smile can grow. Like I should talk.
I look up at the stands. My father is staring straight ahead. But next to him is Bowe. He smiles at me.
I look back and crouch down, waiting. Antonovich tosses the ball up into the air.
Her first serve is flat and angry, but it hits just outside the line and I relax. Then the linesman calls it in. I walk up to the line of the service box, ready to fight it. But the dent in the clay shows that it has indeed hit the line, by just a hair.
She’s got an ace.
Fuck.
I realign.
She serves another just like it, but right on the T this time, instead of cross-court. I am stunned as I watch the ball get past me again.
The crowd begins cheering. The hairs on the back of my neck start to rise. I roll my shoulders, trying to calm myself down.
Get it together.
I get my head straight. She runs me all over the court, but I meet her there, and then I run her all over too. There are some games when I’m outpacing her. But still, she takes the first set, 6–4.
During the changeover, I wipe my face and my racket. I tap the clay off my shoes. I look up at the players’ box to see Bowe and my father talking. Bowe nods as my father gesticulates gently, speaking no doubt in a whisper.
I do not know what they are saying, but I know what I need to do.
I need to get more on Antonovich’s level. I need to run as fast as her, take the ball out of the air even quicker.
I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. Antonovich stands in front of me, waiting for my serve. I toss the ball in the air and spin it toward her as fast as I can. I can feel the force of it reverberating up my arm, from the elbow to my shoulder. It sneaks past her.
I pump my fist. Here we fucking go.
I do it again, and this time she returns it, but it lands a foot past the baseline. I have got this. I hold the first game in the set.
As the set goes on, both of us are playing at our top levels, and neither one of us can break the other’s serve. It’s 3–3 and then 3–4 and then 4–4. I serve another game, I hold it. We’re at 5–4.
Now it’s her serve.
I do not look at my father. I do not want to see the worry in his eyes. I tell myself: Do not let her win this set. You are either a champion or a fuckup. There is no in-between.
Antonovich sends a screamer right down the T, and I meet it with an inside-out forehand. But it hits the tape at the top of the net. Goddammit.
If she holds this game and then breaks mine, it’s all over. I cannot have all these eyes on me, watching me fail. I cannot be the pathetic bitch they think I am.
But Antonovich just keeps coming. It doesn’t matter if I run her around the court––she just glides into position, nicks the ball with the edge of her racket, puts it where she wants it.
We’re at 5–5. Then 5–6.
Now she’s serving for the match. If I don’t break her serve on this game, it’s over.
I crouch down low. I move the weight back and forth from one foot to the other. She tosses the ball. This is my moment. My moment to take it all back.