Trophy Son(65)

I was playing well and holding up physically. I got through to the semifinal and dropped only one set in a tiebreaker. I lost only two service games in four matches.

I was to play the world number one in the semis. Erik Gerhardt, a twenty-five-year-old English kid who’d held the number one ranking for three months. He had thick legs like Gabe but he was 6'4" and a bull, fast and physical like Boris Becker.

I’d faced him twice before and I won both times. He’d taken on Patrick McEnroe as his new coach which had lifted his game, but I still didn’t consider him all that dangerous a player. He was the reigning number one but he wouldn’t go down as an all-time great. He was a very good player who’d been playing great the way Lleyton Hewitt did for a while.

I was the first semifinal match which meant I had a certain start time and didn’t have to wait around for another match. The tournament sends Mercedes SUVs to pick up the players from hotels. I always allowed forty-five minutes to get from the hotel to the tennis center, another forty-five to get out to the practice court, thirty minutes of warm-up starting two hours before the match, then I ate again. For a 1pm match at the US Open, I scheduled the pick-up from my hotel for 9:30am.

The locker room thinned way out this late in the tournament. Instead of the few hundred players on day one, there were four men, four women, plus the doubles draw. Gerhardt was already there when I walked in. The top four players in the world were in the tightest cluster of tour ranking points in history. I was ranked four and if I beat Gerhardt and also went on to win the final, I’d be the new number one.

Ben Archer was ranked number three and in the other semifinal against the twenty-eighth seed who’d broken through. If Ben won the tournament, he’d take the number one spot.

Gerhardt stood and walked over to me with his hand out. “Good luck today, Anton. I hope we have a great match.”

“Me too. Good luck.”

“I’ll miss you on the tour.”

“I doubt for very long, but thanks.”

“Maybe we can get a drink or lunch some time. I’d like to ask you how you’ve handled it all over the years.”

That struck me as something I should have done when twenty-five. “Sure. Any time.”

He nodded thanks and we walked to separate lockers, opponents again. You don’t get to number one without being able to treat even a friend as a conquest.

I stayed in my cushioned chair and didn’t think about the match but found that I couldn’t help but wonder about Gerhardt. What road had he taken? His father, family, loves, books, steroids? Can his coach hand him a racket and get Pavlovian saliva in response? Is he up late at night in bed with eyelids squeezed shut and wondering when his masquerade will end? Does he love anyone? Has he learned how to love? Does he know anyone? Does he know himself?

Elite tennis players are soldiers who enlist at age eight rather than eighteen.

I’d had an early warm-up with Gabe on a practice court and my match time was in forty minutes. Ben Archer’s match was after mine in probably five hours so it was unusual for him to be in the locker room so early, but in he walked.

Ben walked over to me looking unsure of himself. Everyone left a player alone right before a match. We always had to give a few words to the TV reporter on our way to the court which was a nuisance we tolerated. Otherwise, players were left alone but Ben wanted a moment.

I was seated far enough from Gerhardt that low tones wouldn’t reach him. Ben said to me, “You got this guy.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m rooting for you. As always.”

“It’d be fun to play you one more time,” I said. “Fitting.”

“Anyway,” he said, embarrassed, “after all these years, and you leaving now, I just thought I ought to stop in and say a word. I’ll leave you to it.”

He turned and started walking out and I said, “Ben.” He walked back to me so we were close and in low tones again and I said, “How the hell did you do it all this time? Make it all look so calm, intended. Easy.”

“Me, make it look easy? I’ve been jealous of you my whole career. You’re the flashier player. More talented, really. I’m just the plodder, the work horse. It never was easy for me.”

I didn’t think he understood what I meant. “That aside though. I don’t mean the playing, the results. I mean the life. Did you find parts of it as lonely as I did? As miserable?”

He smiled. We’d never exchanged much more than greetings. Maybe some looks that expressed comradeship if you could read into them. But now I was being as frank with him as I’d ever been with anyone. He said, “My dad was a machine worker. He punched a clock and went out on the assembly plant floor for long shifts every day. So I’ve always treated this as a job, punching the clock. This is better than the assembly plant.” He shrugged. “And what’s more, my dad doesn’t have to punch a clock anymore. But, yeah, it was lonely.”

I nodded. “I hope we have one more match together.”

I dressed and stretched and meditated until it was time to take the court. We walked from the locker room down the long familiar hallway to the stadium court, the hallway lined with large photographs of former champions, my photograph there among them, and I looked at the stranger in it.

At the end of the hallway was a reporter. I walked second and gave her a short comment about needing to play hard and respect Gerhardt’s game, and then there was Charlie, the security guard at the head of the tunnel, standing where he had always stood for the last ten years.