Open: An Autobiography

In the first round I play Jérôme Haehnel, a twenty-three-year-old from Alsace, ranked number 271, who doesn’t even have a coach. No problem, Darren says.

Big problem. I come out flat. Every backhand finds the net. I scream at myself, You’re better than this! It’s not over yet! Don’t let it end like this! Gil, sitting in the front row, purses his lips.

It’s not just age, and it’s not just the clay. I’m not hitting the ball cleanly. I’m rested, but rusty from the time off.

Newspapers call it the worst loss of my career. Haehnel tells reporters that his friends pumped him up before the match by assuring him that he was going to win, because I’d recently lost to a player just like him. Asked what he meant by a player just like him, he says: Bad.

We’re down the homestretch, Gil tells reporters - all I can ask is that we don’t limp across the finish line.

Come June, I pull out of Wimbledon. I’ve lost four straight matches - my worst losing streak since 1997 - and my bones feel like china. Gil sits me down and says he doesn’t know how much longer he can watch me go on like this. I need to think long and hard, for both our sakes, about the end.

I tell him I’ll think about my retirement, but first I need to think about Stefanie’s. She’s been voted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, of course: she has more slams than anyone in the history of tennis besides Margaret Court. She wants me to introduce her at the induction ceremony. We fly to Newport, Rhode Island. A big day. The first time we’ve ever left the children with someone else overnight, and the first time I’ve ever seen Stefanie truly, rigidly nervous. She dreads the ceremony. She doesn’t want the attention. She worries that she’ll say the wrong thing or forget to thank someone. She’s shaking.

I’m not all that loose myself. I’ve obsessed for weeks about my speech. It’s the first time I’ve ever spoken in public about Stefanie, and it’s like writing something on the kitchen Appreciation Board for the world to read. J.P. helps me work through various drafts. I’m over-prepared, and as I walk to the dais, I’m breathing hard. Then, the moment I start speaking, I relax, because the subject is my favorite and I consider myself an expert. Every man should have the chance to introduce his wife at her Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

I look out over the crowd, the fans, the faces of former champions, and I want to tell them about Stefanie. I want them to know what I know. I compare her to the artisans and craftsmen who built the great medieval cathedrals: they didn’t curtail their perfectionism when building the roof or the cellar or other unseen parts of the cathedrals. They were perfectionists about every crevice and invisible corner - and that’s Stefanie. And yet also she’s a cathedral, a monument to perfection. I spend five minutes extolling her work ethic, her dignity, her legacy, her strength, her grace. In closing, I utter the truest thing I’ve ever said about her.

Ladies and gentleman, I introduce you to the greatest person I have ever known.

28

EVERYONE AROUND ME TALKS INCESSANTLY OF RETIREMENT. Stefanie’s retirement, Pete’s retirement, mine. Meanwhile, I do nothing but play and keep my eye on the next slam. In Cincinnati, to everyone’s surprise, I beat Roddick in the semis, which propels me to my first ATP final since last November. Then I beat Hewitt, making me the oldest winner of an ATP event since Connors.

The next month, at the 2004 U.S. Open, I tell reporters that I think I have a shot at winning this whole thing. They smile as if I’m demented.

Stefanie and I rent a house outside the city, in Westchester. It’s roomier than a hotel, and we don’t have to worry about pushing the stroller across busy Manhattan streets. Best of all, the house has a basement playroom, which is my bedroom the night before a match. In the basement I can move from the bed to the floor when my back wakes me, without disturbing Stefanie. Since fathers don’t win slams, Stefanie likes to say, you can go to the basement and feel as single as you need to feel.

I see my life wearing on her. I’m a distracted husband, a tired father. She needs to carry more of the load with the children. Still, she never complains. She understands. Her mission, her passion every day, is to create an atmosphere in which I can think solely about tennis.

She remembers how vital that was when she played. For instance, driving to the stadium, Stefanie knows exactly which Elmo songs on the car stereo will keep Jaden and Jaz quiet, so Darren and I can talk strategy. Also, she’s like Gil about food: she never forgets that when you eat is as important as what you eat. After a match, driving home with Darren and Gil, I know that as we walk through the door there will be hot lasagna piled on a plate, the cheese still bubbling.

I also know Darren’s kids and Jaden and Jaz will be fed and clean and tucked away for the night.