Trophy Son(30)

“Nothing. Girl I met.”

Gabe dropped it, thank God. I knew he’d pick it up with Dad later.

We took the Mercedes to the tennis center and walked right to the practice courts. I would sometimes practice with other guys on tour. Sometimes Rufus, sometimes with guys that Gabe would arrange for because they had a playing style that Gabe thought I should see. But on match days I always hit with Gabe. It was a good routine to settle me and Gabe was still a solid player and a great rally partner.

My heart rate was up before I took the court so my muscles responded to the already elevated pace of the rest of me. I was ripping shots past Gabe.

“Easy, Anton. Let’s take it slow, work the drills.”

“Sorry, just feels good today.”

“Keep the beast in the cage another couple hours.”

Daytime matches at the Open can be brutal. August in New York. That day was sunny and ninety degrees so it was a hard day even to spectate a match without shade.

I was up against the twenty-eighth seed, older guy, smart, steady, no big firepower. The stadium was about two-thirds full, normal for a hot day, early round match with middle seeds playing. The heat had sedated everyone so when we took the court there was almost no applause to greet us. I looked for the Nike swoosh at suite level.

I tried to find it with a series of looks that covered about a tenth of the stadium at a time. I’d get a towel from one of the kids on the court, wipe my forearms and look around.

Found it. My vision was always good, better than twenty/twenty. I saw that she had been watching me try to find her. Big smile, waving. I smiled unconsciously and waved only semi-consciously. Gabe would have seen it and wondered what the hell was going on. Ana tipped a baseball cap to me. Article number one.

I served first and pinned three aces in a row past the guy. He was the higher seed but he knew who I was and that if my game was on I could beat anyone. He looked to his player box with an expression that said please don’t let this be one of those days for the kid.

I kept up the pace and blew him out in the first set, 6–1. At the changeover I looked to the Nike box and pointed my tennis racket at her. She took off her baseball cap and flung it like a Frisbee to the seats in front of her then stood clapping. I did a short bow. This was the most fun I’d ever had playing tennis.

I rolled in the second set, winning 6–2. It was an even number of games so there was no changeover. I walked to the back of the court to get a towel and pointed my racket to her suite again. She took off her spaghetti-strap tank top. Underneath was a blue sports bra. Her stomach was tan and trim. I could see her little belly button. I had the vivid image of rubbing sunscreen over her. She folded the tank top into a ball and threw it from the Nike suite. I bowed again.

People noticed Ana and I were having an exchange. For all I knew Darren Cahill was remarking on it to the ESPN television audience. What I didn’t see because I had stopped paying as much attention to the actual match was that my opponent also noticed and was pissed. He didn’t want to be a prop in my show.

I could feel him seething from across the net. He was scrambling hard, ripping his strokes with anger, desperate on every point. I hadn’t been thinking about putting my foot down on his neck, closing the third and final set decisively. I had been thinking about belly buttons.

There’s momentum in matches and ninety-nine percent of the time, momentum in tennis works the same way as momentum for things with actual mass. A reversal doesn’t happen immediately. It slows then stops, then picks up speed in a new direction. I was down 5–2, trying to stay in the third set. He won it 6–3.

The crowd wanted to see more tennis so they were fine with me dropping the third, but when I went down 1–3 in the fourth, they got on my side and got loud.

I was the eighteen-year-old future of tennis having his breakout year. I had pushed Kovalchuk to the brink only months before. And I was an American. Playing in the US Open. In New York Fucking City.

It was my serve, down 1–3 in the fourth. Behind my baseline I got a towel and looked over the tennis balls. The fans sensed I was falling out of the match and a chant started in the crowd. One side of the stadium yelled “Anton” then the other half responded “Stratis.” And back and forth it went, from side to side, like a tennis rally. I looked up, around the stadium, realizing the noise was for me, thousands of people trying to pick me up, dust me off, put some fight in me. I wanted to show gratitude so I whipped the towel like a lasso, the way I’d seen in old clips of Steelers fans in the 70s.

I kept doing this while walking up to the baseline and the chant erupted into a frenzy of indecipherable screams. Every fan was standing, yelling, pumping fists. Nobody noticed the weather anymore. The hotter the better. The umpire called for quiet. I slammed an ace up the middle and the crowd yelled louder than before. They realized they had actual power, that if they worked hard enough, they could affect the match.

One percent of the time momentum can reverse with zero gravity. I won the fourth set 6–3. The crowd saved me. I loved New York.

I was so relieved at rescuing a win that I didn’t make any motion to the Nike suite. I also wanted to shake hands with my opponent and not clown around. When I took my seat courtside, I drank water and made a more subtle point to the suite with my racket. She laughed and clapped harder, but no shorts or sports bra came flying out.

In the post-match presser, one reporter asked if I was in a relationship with Ana Stokke. As a reflex I said we’re just friends. It was a question about my life, not my tennis. It was the first time I felt like a celebrity. A mini one, anyway.