Trophy Son(31)

After media and a shower, I dressed and took a moment to myself in the locker room. No messages on my phone from Ana so I typed one.



She typed right back.



I stared at my phone, reading and rereading. Good answer. I pressed the button to make this a phone call and she picked right up.

“Congratulations. Great match. I’ve never had so much fun at the Open.”

“Thanks for coming out. It was nice to have a familiar face in the crowd.”

“I didn’t distract you?”

“Only a little. It was good.”

“You were fun to watch. You looked hot out there. Meaning good.”

Could talking to girls really be this easy? What have I been missing? “Want to meet for dinner in the city tonight?”

“Oh, I would love to but I can’t. I have a ton of stuff to do. I fly to New Zealand first thing tomorrow.”

Crap. “Nine months?” I imagined punters in football jerseys running around New Zealand.

“Yeah.”

I wondered how far she’d be from Australia. I’d be there in January. “Maybe we’ll manage to see each other before too long.”

“That would be nice.”

I could feel it all slipping away. I was back to being the boy from Love in the Time of Cholera. She was being taken away from me, from our fate. “Ana?”

“Yes?”

“I just have this feeling.”

“Yeah?”

“Like a gypsy read my palm and told me we’re supposed to be together.” Strong stuff. Or stupid stuff, not sure.

“Oh, that’s so sweet, Anton.”

Her tone sounded like a college girl who’s been asked to a high school prom. Maybe I was only paranoid. This was the first time since Liz I’d ever verbalized affection for a girl and I had no idea what was happening and didn’t trust my instincts about anyone, especially the instinct that said things are okay. I expected at least some measure of reciprocity. “Well, I hope you have a good flight,” I said.

“Send me the book.”

“I will.”

I hung up. This was the same gypsy who knew I’d play tennis.

Which books could I send her? Definitely Love in the Time of Cholera. Great love story in the end, really. I could add Portnoy’s Complaint. Too dark, though. Basically porn. I’d have liked her to send it to me but I couldn’t send it to her. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison? Pretty dark too but good for a girl trying to fit in, maybe.

“Atom Bomb.” It was Adam. He was getting all the rackets together for my next round. “Great match, my man.”

“Thanks.” Maybe I could talk to Adam about Ana. He might understand. I hoped so. I missed Panos, off having a full life in college. Adam was my only choice.

“Back to the hotel?” he said.

“Want to meet for dinner tonight?” I said for the second time in five minutes.

“Sure. And some PlayStation.”

“Of course.”

In the next round I lost to the fifth seed. It was a grinding five-set match. I didn’t play my best or my worst.

The new rankings were published after the tournament. I was number thirty-two in the world.





CHAPTER

20

I had a good hard court season that fall and the press coverage on me was positive. The analysts seemed to like me, think I was a good kid, good for the game. My play was compared to Patrick Rafter. Tall but with a low center of gravity, can serve and volley, speed to cover the court.

I loved Rafter’s game but mine was never as pretty as his. Like I said, I was more like Safin, more power than finesse. Safin was still a favorable comparison for me. He was a great player but the career numbers don’t show how great he really was. He was able to stay focused on professional tennis for only a short window of time.

I would serve and volley about as often as any player on the tour at that time, which wasn’t much. The game changed in the years before I was born. The change was partly due to better technology for the rackets, but even more it was due to better technology for the strings. Strings that could grip a tennis ball so that you could rip a swing with everything you had and put deadly spin on the ball. Gustavo Kuerten had the strings before anyone and won three French Opens before other players caught on.

These days a player can out-strategize and out-execute a player like Rafa in a point, drive him way off the court, then Rafa from horrible position can rip a ball for a winner and take the point. Bullshit, really. In the old days, equipment didn’t allow that kind of firepower. The game wasn’t about “the shot.” It was about all the shots before “the shot.” Working a point. Some thinking.

If tennis never allowed changes in technology, if the game never left wood rackets and gut strings, then McEnroe would have gone down as the best ever. He was the best at the old tennis, but technology caught him midcareer.

The greatest athletes do fine with the old or the new technology. Sampras would have won majors in the woody era too. Now we have guys on the tour built specifically for the new era and they wouldn’t have won a match thirty-five years ago.

I’d do all right in either generation but I prefer the old one because they didn’t train so much and winning certainly didn’t require drugs.

I called Ana’s psychiatrist. His name was Peter Minkoff. Our first session was telephonic because I was at a hard court tournament in Croatia.