Trophy Son(67)

Mentally tough players can put a firewall between sets, like the Titanic, only better. But this was worse for Gerhardt. His huge knowledge advantage coming into the match had cost me only a set and now I’d evened that up. He wasn’t even frustrated yet. He was still confused. His frustration would come when I creamed him.

I took the third set 6–2 and was up 4–1 in the fourth and what should have been the deciding set. I reached up to spin a second serve out wide to the ad court and my back went. I felt a sharp pain that seized me like an assassin garroting my lower back with piano wire.

Gerhardt managed a weak return of my serve but I couldn’t move for his ball. Immediate injury timeout.

I moved to my chair on tiptoes trying not to antogonize my lower back. I sat as slowly as I could while a tournament trainer ran out to check me. He asked me how bad and I said very. He made the assessment for a full injury timeout back in the locker room so a trainer got under each of my arms and helped me off the court. We walked through the locker room to a small training room with padded table where I lay on my stomach.

Bobby was there. He prepared an injection, probably cortisone or something like it, while a trainer gently rubbed out my back.

Minutes passed. It didn’t hurt if I didn’t move but it was time to play or default. I stood and walked back out on my own, afraid of the pain but not feeling it right then. I paced along the baseline, keeping my back rod-straight and tried a slow service motion with my arm. No searing pain but I felt my back muscles were tired and tweaked like a torture victim’s.

I had to finish out my service game and I thought about serving underhand. Instead I hit a flat-footed serve with no pop and Gerhardt ripped the return past me mercilessly. I lost that service game and went on to lose the fourth set 6–4.

It was an even game so there was no reprieve to me of switching ends and resting in my chair. I called a second injury timeout and shuffled to sit down. The trainer ran back out and this time I lay belly-down on the court by the chair and he rubbed out my back again. Humiliating, but it felt good.

With my cheek to the court I could see up into my player’s box. My mother and father, to me now just fans that I used to know well, looked panicked. Panos and Kristie, holding hands, meeting my gaze. Ana had her hands to her face trying to wish away my pain.

I thought again about Joe Montana, knowing this might be the last time I could look up at a stadium crowd, feel the roar and then the hush, repeating like ocean waves.

The umpire called time. I pushed back to my knees then stood all the way. I was still scared of my back but it felt looser. Gerhardt looked eager to finish me, maybe a little frustrated with the timeout.

It was his serve and I decided to guess. He wouldn’t serve into my body. I figured he’d serve wide and test my movement. He tossed and I cheated three steps to the right and sat on a forehand. I had guessed right and banged a winner up the line. The New York crowd roared for me and I felt their energy fuel me.

It can be tricky for a healthy player to face an injured player. The healthy player should just play his game but sometimes doesn’t. Gerhardt threw in a double fault, then nerves started to grip him. It was visible to me. I broke his serve then risked more on my own serve and held to go up 2–0 in the fifth and final set.

If Gerhardt knew how badly I was hurt, he would have settled in, gotten down to business and finished me. But he didn’t know and he couldn’t settle down. His game got tight, his strokes shortened up and his decision making was erratic, taking chances at the wrong times, nerves making him try to end the points too soon.

Fans watching at home on TV can see for themselves when control of a match passes from one player to the other. Their observation is validated by McEnroe’s commentary from the booth, then borne out on the court.

I had control of the match, the crowd noise for me almost loud enough to break the stadium, giving strength to me and taking it from Gerhardt.

With the external stimulation I thought I had enough to last and carry the set and match. I was certain McEnroe was saying that to all the televisions. I knew even if I did win, they’d have to carry me on the court for the final.

As the points played out, I grew more certain of winning. Gerhardt took some points but that made the crowd even crazier when I took the next ones. I could see he didn’t want to play anymore, wanted off the court, away from the stage. He had the “kill me quickly” look I had also known.

I won the match and shuffled back to the training room for relief.





CHAPTER

46

I got slaughtered in the final. Ben Archer had won his semifinal so my slaughter was at his hands. Two days was not enough time for my back to recover much. I refused to retire from the match, especially to Ben whom I respected and who would take another major and the number one ranking with the win while I would take on a new life. He won 6–3, 6–1, 6–0.

The tournament officials had reserved the players’ lounge for me after the awards ceremony so that I could linger privately and drink in the final moments of my professional tennis and I sat there with my family, my team and Ana.

My father and I had a long embrace and when we pushed back from each other still holding each other’s shoulders at arm’s length, there was a feeling of real parting with finality. I was retired now and released from his dreams. He had no plan for me after tennis, no vision or hopes for what I might be. I barely had that myself.