Carrie Soto Is Back(14)

“Es cierto,” my dad said, not looking up from his magazine.

“But she has more power than me,” I said. “I have trouble taking her pace off the ball sometimes. I’m picking the wrong shots.”

He was silent.

“You said I’m supposed to be the greatest tennis player of a generation. You said I had to grow into who I would become. What are we going to do? I need you…” I said. “I need you to figure it out.”

He closed his magazine and looked at me. “Dame un minuto. I’m thinking.”

He stood up, stretched out his back, and started pacing along the aisle of the plane. Then suddenly he was back. “Your slice.”

“My slice?”

“Let’s refine it, make it sharper, make it bulletproof. It will take away all of her momentum. We make it deadly and then…” He nodded. “That will kill her.”



* * *



—

My father and I practiced my slice for months. We made it my very best shot. We perfected it over hours and hours of drills. My angle was brutal. And I knew how and when to implement it.

Amparo Pereira capsized when I used it. Tanya McLeod didn’t stand a chance against me anymore. Olga Zeman fell to her knees that summer and cried when I beat her in straight sets. After that match, a reporter asked me on camera what advice I had for the opponents struggling to keep up with me.

I said, “Honestly? Get better at tennis.”

That sound bite was played on every single sports show in the country. My father would shake his head every time. “That was unnecessary, Carolina.”

“But that’s what I did,” I’d remind him. “Why is everyone so sensitive about the truth?”

“They are calling you ‘Cold-Hearted Carrie’ now,” my dad lamented once.

Nobody liked my style. But who could argue with the results? It wasn’t just McLeod and Pereira and Zeman I was taking down.

Stepanova was crumbling. I’d annihilated her with that slice in the semis at Wimbledon. And then two days later, I won my first Grand Slam when I defeated Mary-Louise Bryant in the final.

My first Wimbledon trophy.

The next day after winning, I slept in until eight for the first time in what felt like years. When I woke up, I could hear the television in the living room of the suite, my father delighting in the moment we both had worked so hard for.

“We may just be seeing the beginning of a stunning Wimbledon career,” I heard the announcer say as I got out of bed. “Carrie Soto’s slice has proven to be a dangerous weapon indeed, as it helped her take down fellow American Mary-Louise Bryant yesterday. And, maybe more notable, it slayed her fiercest rival, Paulina Stepanova, in the semis.”

“Although, Brent,” the commenter said, “Paulina has gone on record as saying her ankle was giving her trouble.”

I marched into the living room and shut the TV off.



* * *



—

US Open 1976.

Stepanova and I were in the semifinals.

I took the first set easily. We were 5–4 in the second. All I had to do was hold the next game and I’d take Stepanova in straight sets, passing through to the final.

I served an ace right on the line. Stepanova stomped her foot. She walked over to the umpire and appealed, but it held. My point.

Stepanova walked back to the baseline, shaking her head. When fans booed on her behalf, she put her hand to her chest and pouted, as if she were the victim of a bad call.

I ignored her and served again, watching it land on the line and then bounce far and high.

Stepanova ran for it, lunging as far as she could. She returned it but landed on the edge of her foot, which buckled under her weight, rolling her ankle.

By the time I hit the ball back over, she was folded over on the ground. A medic came rushing onto the court. Soon he was holding Stepanova up as she started hobbling off. They called a medical time-out.

I sat down and wiped my forehead. I ate a banana. I drank some water. Shortly after, an official came up to me.

“Ms. Stepanova is asking if you would consider a delay.”

“What?” I said.

“Her team is requesting more time for her to have her ankle wrapped and assess the injury.”

“A delay?” I said, taking another sip of water. “No, absolutely not. If the roles were reversed, she would not grant me a delay in a million years. No.”

The man went to tell Stepanova. I looked over at my father in the box. I could tell he understood exactly what had been asked. He nodded at me.

As we made our way back onto the court, Stepanova stared at me with a scowl. I truly could not believe it. What right did she have to be angry?

“If you really are hurt, you should retire,” I said. “As you always tell the press, I only beat you when you’re injured.”

“Never,” she spat.

“It just kills you to think I might be better than you, doesn’t it?” I said.

She laughed. “You cannot be better than me if I’m always above you in the rankings, druzhok.”

The crowd was cheering for her. She waved to them as she limped to the baseline.

She was brilliant. She knew she was going to lose this match, but at least now she had the sympathy of the world. She’d somehow seized the moral high ground by implying that I was exploiting her injuries for the win.