Carrie Soto Is Back(32)

Why I’m Thankful for Carrie Soto


    Letter from the Editor


    Helene Johannes


    Vivant Magazine


When I was eleven years old, my mother sat me down at the table and explained to me that I was now too old to wrestle in the backyard with my younger brothers.

“It’s not appropriate anymore,” she said. She had softened the reprimand by making me a warm apple cider. “I need you inside with me from now on, helping with dinner.”

That evening, I sat at the kitchen table watching my three little brothers wrestle as I peeled the potatoes.

My mother has long passed away and my brothers and I are all adults now. But I would be lying if I said that the memory of losing my favorite pastime with my brothers—running around in the crisp fall weather, hearing the crunching of leaves as I tackled one of them—didn’t ache.

Some men’s childhoods are permitted to last forever, but women are so often reminded that there is work to be done.

And yet here is Carrie Soto, daring to play.

I felt a sense of thrill at her announcement last month. And it’s not just me; so many of my friends seem to agree. Carrie Soto is living the dream for all of us, coming back for one last go around the block.

As we look ahead to what 1995 may have in store for us, our writers this month have focused on what’s new: the ingénues, the rookies, and the Young Turks. We have our cover story with breakout star Cameron Diaz, an upcoming look at what’s next for Aaliyah, and a conversation with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, the cast of Richard Linklater’s upcoming Before Sunrise.

But I would like to take the time to also celebrate those of us from the previous generation who are staying in the fight.

We know that Carrie Soto is likely not going to win a single title next year. And it would, perhaps, behoove her to admit it now and spare us all the embarrassment of having to pretend otherwise. One cannot deny the toll age takes on an athlete’s body, no matter how unjust. She will be a shadow of the dominant Battle Axe we knew in the eighties. But that is far from the point.

It is her right to have fun, to keep playing. To not help with dinner.

And I, for one, am glad she’s exercising it.





DECEMBER 1994


    A month and a half before Melbourne


I stop reading the sports pages for now. Instead, in the mornings as I drink my smoothie and eat my almonds, I read the tabloids. Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere are getting divorced, which sort of shocks me, though I don’t know why.

I love gossip magazines. I cannot get enough of the delicious buzz of who is sleeping with who and what they are naming their babies. It is one of the many benefits to my dating life no longer making the covers of the magazines. I can read them at breakfast without fear. One tiny moment of peace in an otherwise grueling day.

After breakfast, every morning, I work out. Then, in the afternoon, I do drills. And then every evening, a little after five p.m., the lights kick on, and Bowe shows up and we play in the cool evening air.

At first, I win almost every time. But he improves quickly, too quickly. Soon, I am only winning when we play two out of three. Bowe starts winning when we play three out of five. An acute reminder that I need to work on my stamina.

Now, today, Bowe is playing the best he’s ever played. His serve is sharper, his focus is there. His shots are surprising me. He’s broken my serve multiple times today.

“This!” my father shouts to him across the court. “This is the player I wanted to see!”

“What?” Bowe calls out.

“I said this is the player I wanted to see!”

Bowe nods and then serves the ball. I suspect he heard my father the first time and simply hadn’t known how to respond.

Bowe and I play until about eight, when he squeezes out a win. I started tripping up in the last set, sending my forehands wide, my backhands into the net.

My father does not need to say anything. I can tell what he’s thinking when he catches my eye. If I play this way in the Open, I’m done for.

Bowe packs up his kit.

“So, tomorrow?” he says. We had agreed to one more session before he heads out for the ATP tour. We’ll play in Melbourne a bit too, before the tournament starts—acclimate to the weather and the courts. My father has already planned out which days I’ll be doing drills and practice matches and resting. He can tell you in December what I’ll be doing down to the minute at the end of January.

“Tomorrow it is,” I say.

“I’d be open to just hitting drills back and forth, instead of a match,” Bowe says. “We both could use some work on our serves. I’m breaking your serve more. I can feel that my backhand is getting more precise. But my own serve…I still need…”

“You need to work on your first serve for a solid week,” my father interjects. “Your form right now is pathetic compared to what you are capable of.”

“Dad…”

“No, it’s fine,” Bowe says.

“Of course it’s fine!” Javier says. “Because you know I’m right. You should not be using a pinpoint stance. You do not need power. You need precision, you need to—”

“I’ve used a pinpoint stance my whole life. That’s why I can smoke ’em past fuckers like Randall.”