Open: An Autobiography

I love our concepts, our designs, but I’m particularly proud of our commitment to putting money behind our ideas. Lots of money. Perry and I were horrified to learn that Nevada spends less than almost any other state on education - $6,800 per pupil, as compared with the national average of nearly $8,600. Thus, at my school we’ve vowed to make up the difference, and then some. Through a mix of state funding and private donors, we’re going to invest heavily in kids and thereby prove that in education, as in all things, you get what you pay for.

We’re also going to keep our kids in school more hours each day - eight instead of Nevada’s customary six. If I’ve learned nothing else, it’s that time and practice equal achieve-ment. Further, we’re going to insist that parents become intimately involved with the school.

At least one parent per child will be required to spend twelve hours a month volunteering as a student aide in the classrooms or a monitor on school trips. We want parents to feel like shareholders. We want them fully committed and responsible for getting their children into college.

Many days, when I feel rundown or low, I drive to the neighborhood and watch the school take shape. Of all my contradictions, this is the most amazing, and the most amusing - a boy who despised and feared school becomes a man inspired and reenergized by the sight of his own school being built.

I can’t be there on opening day, however. I’m playing in the 2001 U.S. Open. I’m playing for the school, therefore playing my best. I burn through four rounds and meet Pete in the quarters. From the moment we come out of the tunnel, we know this will be our fiercest battle yet. We just know. It’s the thirty-second time we’ve played, he leads 17:14, and each of us wears an unusually grim game face. Right here, right now, this one will decide the rivalry.

Winner take all.

Pete is supposed to be at half speed. He hasn’t won a slam in fourteen months. He’s been balky, and openly talking retirement. But all of that is irrelevant, because he’s playing me. Still, I win the first set in a tiebreak, and now I feel good about my chances. I have a 49:1 record at this tournament when I win the first set.

Someone please remind Pete of the stats. He wins the second set in a tiebreak.

The third set also goes to a tiebreak. I make several foolish mistakes. Fatigue. He wins the third set.

In the fourth set we have several epic rallies. We go to still another tiebreak. We’ve played three hours, and neither of us has yet broken the other’s serve. It’s after midnight. The fans - 23,000 plus - rise. They won’t let us start the fourth tiebreak. Stomping and clapping, they’re staging their own tiebreak. Before we press on they want to say thanks.

I’m moved. I see that Pete is moved. But I can’t think about the fans. I can’t let myself think about anything but reaching the sanctuary of a fifth set.

Pete knows that the advantage tips in my direction if this goes five sets. He knows that he needs to play a perfect tiebreak to prevent a fifth set. And so he does. A night of flawless tennis ends with my forehand in the net.

Pete screams.

I actually feel my pulse decrease. I don’t feel bad. I try to feel bad, but I can’t. I wonder if I’m growing accustomed to losing to Pete in big matches, or simply growing content with my career and life. Whatever the case, I put my hand on Pete’s shoulder and wish him well, and though it doesn’t feel like goodbye, it feels like a rehearsal for a goodbye that can’t be far off.

IN OCTOBER 2001, three days before Stefanie is due to give birth, we invite our mothers and a Nevada judge to the house.

I love watching Stefanie with my mother. The two shy women in my life. Stefanie often brings her a couple of new jigsaw puzzles. And I adore Stefanie’s mother, Heidi. She looks like Stefanie, so she had me at guten tag. Stefanie and I, barefoot and wearing jeans, stand before the judge in the courtyard. For wedding bands we use twists of old raffia Stefanie found in a drawer - the same stuff I used to decorate her first birthday card. Neither of us notices the coincidence until later.

My father insists he’s not the least bit slighted by not getting an invite. He doesn’t want an invite. The last thing he wants to do is attend a wedding. He doesn’t like weddings. (He walked out in the middle of my first.) He doesn’t care where or when or how I make Stefanie my wife, he says, so long as I do it. She’s the greatest women’s tennis player of all time, he says. What’s not to like?

The judge runs through his legal rigmarole, and Stefanie and I are just about to say I do, when a team of landscapers arrive. I run outside and ask them to please turn off their lawnmowers and leaf blowers for five minutes so that we can get married. They apologize. One holds a finger over his lips.

By the power vested in me, the judge says, and at last, at long last, with two mothers and three landscapers looking on, Steffi Graf becomes Stefanie Agassi.

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