Open: An Autobiography

And if they knew they wouldn’t hold it against me. They cheered me during my match with Jensen, but after I outclass Cash, they adopt me. This guy is our guy. This guy does well here. Inspired by their raucous encouragement, I reach the semis against Ivan Lendl, who’s ranked number one. My biggest match ever. My father flies in from Vegas.

An hour before the match, Lendl is walking around the locker room wearing only his tennis shoes. Seeing him so relaxed, so remarkably nude, right before facing me, I know what’s coming. The beat-down to end all beat-downs. I lose in three sets. Still, I walk away feeling encouraged, because I won the second set. For half an hour, I gave the best in the world all he wanted. I can build on that. I feel good.

That is, until I see what Lendl has to say about me in the newspapers. Asked about my game, he sniffs: A haircut and a forehand.

9

I FINISH 1987 WITH A BANG. I win my first tournament as a pro, in Itaparica, Brazil, all the more impressive because I do it before a crowd of initially hostile Brazilians. After I beat their top player, Luiz Mattar, the fans don’t seem to hold a grudge. In fact they make me an honorary Brazilian. They rush the court, hoist me on their shoulders, throw me in the air.

Many have come to the arena straight from the beach. They’re slathered with cocoa butter, and consequently so am I. Women in bikinis and thongs cover me with kisses. Music plays, people dance, someone hands me a bottle of champagne and tells me to spray it into the crowd. The carnival atmosphere is the perfect complement to my inner Mardi Gras. I finally broke through. I won five matches in a row. (To win a slam, I realize with some alarm, I’ll need to win seven.)

A man hands me the winner’s check. I have to look twice at the number. In the amount of: $90,000.

With the check still folded in my jeans pocket, I stand two days later in my father’s living room and employ a bit of remedial psychology. Pops, I say, how much do you think I’m going to make next year?

Ho ho, he says, beaming. Millions.

Good - then you won’t mind if I buy a car.

He frowns. Checkmate.

I know just the kind I want. A white Corvette with all the extras. My father insists that he and my mother go with me to the dealership, to make sure the salesman doesn’t screw me. I can’t say no. My father is my landlord and keeper. I no longer live full-time at the Bolletieri Academy, so once again I live under my father’s roof, and thus under his control. I’m traveling the world, making good money, winning a measure of fame, and yet my old man essentially keeps me on an allowance. It’s inappropriate, but hell, my whole life is inappropriate. I’m only seventeen, not ready to live on my own, barely ready to stand alone on a tennis court, and yet I was just in Rio, holding a girl in a thong with one hand and a $90,000 check with the other.

I’m an adolescent who’s seen too much, a man-child without a checking account.

At the car dealership my father goes back and forth with the salesman, and the negotiation quickly turns contentious. Why am I not surprised? Every time my father makes a new offer the salesman walks off to consult his manager. My father clenches and unclenches his fists.

The salesman and my father eventually agree on a price. I’m seconds from owning my dream car. My father puts on his glasses, gives the paperwork a last look. He runs his finger down the itemized list of charges. Wait, what’s this? A charge for $49.99?

Small fee for the paperwork, the salesman says.

Ain’t my fucking paper. That’s your fucking paper. Pay for your own fucking paper.

The salesman doesn’t care for my father’s tone. Hard words are exchanged. My father gets that look in his eye, the same look he had before dropping the trucker. Just the sight of all these cars is giving him the old road rage.

Pops, the car costs $37,000, and you’re flipping out about a $50 fee?

They’re screwing you, Andre! They’re screwing me. The world is trying to screw me!

He storms out of the salesman’s office and into the main showroom, where the managers sit along a high counter. He screams at them: You think you’re safe back there? You think you’re safe behind that counter? Why don’t you come out from behind there?

His dukes are up. He’s ready to fight five men at once.

My mother puts an arm around me and says the best thing we can do now is go outside and wait.

We stand on the sidewalk and watch my father’s tirade through the plate-glass window of the dealership. He’s pounding the desk. He’s waving his hands. It’s like watching a terrible silent movie. I’m mortified, but also slightly envious. I wish I possessed some of my father’s rage. I wish I could tap into it during tough matches. I wonder what I could do in tennis if I could access that rage and aim it across the net. Instead, whatever rage I have, I turn on myself.

Mom, I ask, how do you take it? All these years?