Open: An Autobiography

Because of Stefanie, I make it to the quarters, where I face the number one seed, Federer. He’s not the man I beat in Key Biscayne. He’s growing before my eyes into one of the game’s all-time greats. He methodically builds a lead, two sets to one, and I can’t help but stand back and admire his immense skills, his magnificent composure. He’s the most regal player I’ve ever witnessed. Before he can finish me off, however, play is halted due to rain.

Driving back to Westchester, I stare out the window and tell myself: Don’t think about tomorrow. Also, don’t even think about dinner, because the match was cut short and I’m coming home hours earlier than expected. But of course Stefanie has a source with the weather service. Someone gave her a heads-up about the storm as it was swooping down from Albany, and she jumped into the car and rushed home and got everything ready. Now, as we walk through the door, she kisses us all and hands us plates in a single motion, fluid as her serve. I want to invite a judge to the house and renew our vows.

THE NEXT DAY howling winds come. Gusts of forty miles an hour. I fight through the winds, and through Federer’s hurricane-force skills, and tie the match at two sets apiece. Federer glances at his feet, which is how he registers shock.

Then he adjusts better than I do. I have a sense he can adjust to anything, on the fly. He pulls out a tough fifth set, and I tell anyone who’ll listen that he’s on his way to becoming the best ever.

Before the winds settle down, retirement talk swirls again. Reporters want to know why I keep going. I explain that this is what I do for a living. I have a family and a school to support.

Many people benefit from every tennis ball I hit. (One month after the U.S. Open, Stefanie and I host the ninth annual Grand Slam for Children, which collects $6 million. All told, we’ve raised $40 million for my foundation.)

Also, I tell reporters, I have game left. I don’t know how much, but some. I still think I can win.

Again they stare.

Maybe they’re confused because I don’t tell them the full story, don’t explain my full motivation. I can’t, since I’m only slowly becoming aware of it myself. I play and keep playing because I choose to play. Even if it’s not your ideal life, you can always choose it. No matter what your life is, choosing it changes everything.

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AT THE 2005 AUSTRALIAN OPEN I beat Taylor Dent in three sets, advancing to the fourth round, and outside the locker room I stop for a very engaging TV commentator - Courier. It’s odd to see him in this new role. I can’t stop seeing him as a great champion.

And yet TV suits him. He does it well and seems happy. I feel a good deal of respect for him, and I hope he feels some for me. Our differences feel long ago and juvenile.

He puts the microphone in front of my mouth and asks: How long before Jaden Agassi plays Pete’s son?

I look into the camera and say: My biggest hope for my child is that he’s focused on something.

Then I add: Hopefully he’ll choose tennis, because I love it so much.

The old, old lie. But now it’s even more shameful, because I’ve attached it to my son. The lie threatens to become my legacy. Stefanie and I are more resolved than ever that we don’t want this crazy life for Jaden or Jaz, so what made me say it? As always, I suppose it was what I knew people wanted to hear. Also, flush from a win, I felt that tennis is a beautiful sport, which has treated me well, and I wanted to honor it. And maybe, standing before a champion I respected, I felt guilty for hating it. The lie may have been my way of hiding my guilt, or aton-ing for it.

IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS Gil has given a few hard twists to my training. He’s had me eating like a Spartan warrior, and the new diet has honed me to a fine edge.

Also, I’ve had a cortisone shot, my third in the last year. Four is the maximum annual number recommended. There are risks, the doctors say. We simply don’t know cortisone’s long-term consequences for the spine and liver. But I don’t care. So long as my back behaves.

And it does. I reach the quarters, where again I face Federer. I can’t win a set. He dismisses me like a teacher with a dense pupil. He, more than any of the young guns taking control of the game, makes me feel my age. When I look at him, with his suave agility, his shotmaking prowess and puma-like smoothness, I remember that I’ve been around since the days of wooden rackets. My brother-in-law, after all, was Pancho Gonzalez, a champion during the Berlin airlift, a rival of Fred Perry, and Federer was born the year I met my friend Perry.

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