Open: An Autobiography

I’ve already obsessed about this tournament for the last ten years. I can’t bear the idea of obsessing about it for another eighty. After all this work and sweat, after this improbable comeback and this miraculous tournament, if I don’t win this thing right now, I’ll never be happy, truly happy, again. And Brad will have to be institutionalized. The finish line is close enough to kiss. I feel it pulling me.

Medvedev wins both match points. He staves off death. We’re back to deuce. I win the next point, however. Match point, again.

I yell at myself: Now. Now. Win this now.

But he wins the next point, then wins the game.

The changeover takes an eternity. I mop my face with a towel. I look at Brad, expecting him to be disconsolate, as I am. But his face is determined. He holds up four fingers. Four more points. Four points equals all four slams. Come on! Let’s go!

If I’m going to lose this match, if I’m doomed to live with withering regret, it won’t be because I didn’t do what Brad said. I hear his voice in my ear: Go back to the well.

Medvedev’s forehand is the well.

We walk onto the court. I’m going to hit everything to Medvedev’s forehand, and he knows I’m going to. On the first point he’s tight, tentative on a passing shot up the line. He puts the ball into the net.

He wins the next point, however, when I net my running forehand.

Suddenly I rediscover my serve. Out of nowhere I uncork a big first serve that he can’t handle. He hits a tired forehand that flies long. I hit my next first serve, even bigger, and he nets a forehand.

Championship point. Half the crowd is yelling my name, the other half is yelling, Ssssh. I hit another sizzling first serve, and when Medvedev steps to the side and takes a chicken-wing swing, I’m the second person to know that I’ve won the French Open. Brad is the first. Medvedev is third. The ball lands well beyond the baseline. Watching it fall is one of the great joys of my life.

I raise my arms and my racket falls on the clay. I’m sobbing. I’m rubbing my head. I’m terrified by how good this feels. Winning isn’t supposed to feel this good. Winning is never supposed to matter this much. But it does, it does, I can’t help it. I’m overjoyed, grateful to Brad, to Gil, to Paris - even to Brooke and Nick. Without Nick I wouldn’t be here. Without all the ups and downs with Brooke, even the misery of our final days, this wouldn’t be possible. I even reserve some gratitude for myself, for all the good and bad choices that led here.

I walk off the court, blowing kisses in all four directions, the most heartfelt gesture I can think of to express the gratitude pulsing through me, the emotion that feels like the source of all other emotions. I vow that I will do this from now on, win or lose, whenever I walk off a tennis court. I will blow kisses to the four corners of the earth, thanking everyone.

WE HAVE A SMALL PARTY at an Italian restaurant, Stressa, in downtown Paris, close to the Seine, close to the spot where I gave Brooke the tennis bracelet. I’m drinking champagne out of my trophy. Gil is drinking a Coke and he’s physically incapable of not smiling. Every now and then he puts his hand on mine - it’s as heavy as a dictionary - and says, You did it.

We did it, Gilly.

McEnroe is there. He hands me a phone and says: Someone wants to say hello.

Andre? Andre! Congratulations. I got such joy watching you tonight. I envy you.

Borg.

Envy? Why?

Doing something so few of us have done.

The sun is coming up when Brad and I walk back to the hotel. He puts his arm around me and says, The journey ended the right way.

Seconds after beating Andrei Medvedev to capture the 1999

French Open

How so?

He says, Usually in life the journey ends the wrong fucking way. But this one time it ended the right way.

I throw an arm around Brad. It’s one of the few things the prophet has gotten wrong all month. The journey is just beginning.

23

ON THE CONCORDE BACK TO NEW YORK, Brad tells me it’s destiny - destiny. He’s had a couple of beers.

You won the 1999 French Open on the men’s side, he says. And who should happen to have won it on the women’s side? Who? Tell me.

I smile.

That’s right. Steffi Graf. It’s destiny you end up together. Only two people in the history of the world have won all four slams and a gold medal - you and Steffi Graf. The Golden Slam.

It’s destiny that you two should be married.

In fact, he says, here’s my prediction. He takes the Concorde promotional literature from the seat pocket and scribbles on the upper right-hand corner: 2001 - Steffi Agassi.

What the hell does that mean?

You guys will be married by 2001. And you’ll have your first kids together in 2002.

Brad, she has a boyfriend. Have you forgotten?

After the two weeks you’ve just had, you’re going to tell me anything is impossible?

Well, I’ll say this. Now that I’ve won the French Open, I do feel slightly more - I don’t know.

Worthy?

There. Now you’re talking.