Open: An Autobiography

Ivanisevic rises up in the fourth set and destroys me. I’ve made the Croat mad. He loses only a handful of points in the process. Here we go again. I can see tomorrow’s headlines as plain as the racket in my hand. As the fifth set begins I run in place to get the blood flowing and tell myself one thing: You want this. You do not want to lose, not this time. The problem in the last three slams was that you didn’t want them enough, and therefore you didn’t bring it, but this one you want, so this time you need to let Ivanisevic and everyone else in this joint know you want it.

At 3:3, I’m serving, break point. I haven’t been able to make a first serve this entire set, but now, mercifully, I make one. He returns it to the center of the court, I hit to his backhand, he hits a chip lob. I have to back up two steps. The overhead is one of the easiest shots you can play. It’s also the epitome of my struggles at slams, because it’s too easy. I don’t like things too easy. It’s there for the taking - will I take it? I swing, hit a textbook overhead, and win the point. I go on to hold serve.

Now Ivanisevic’s serving at 4:5. He double-faults. Twice. He’s down love:30. He’s crack-ing under the strain. I haven’t broken this guy in the last hour and a half and now he’s breaking himself. He misses another first serve. He’s coming apart. I know it. I see it. No one knows better than I what coming apart looks like. I also know how it feels. I know precisely what’s happening inside Ivanisevic’s body. His throat is closing. His legs are quivering. But then he quiets his body and hits a second serve to the back of the box, a beam of yellow light that barely nicks the line. A puff of chalk shoots up as if he hit the line with an assault rifle. Then he hits another unreturnable serve. Suddenly it’s 30:all.

He misses another first serve, makes the second. I crush a return, he hits a half volley, I run in and pass him and start the long walk back to the baseline. I tell myself, You can win this thing with one swing. One swing. You’ve never been this close. You may never be again.

And that’s the problem. What if I get this close and don’t win? The ridicule. The condemnation. I pause, try to shift my focus back to Ivanisevic. I need to guess which way he’s coming with his serve. OK, a typical lefty, serving to the ad court in a pressure point, hits a bending slider, out wide, that sweeps his opponent off the court. But Ivanisevic isn’t typical. His serve in a pressure point is generally a flat bomb up the middle. Why he prefers that serve, God knows. Maybe he shouldn’t. But he does. I know this about him. I know he’s coming up the middle. Sure enough, here he comes, but he nets the serve. Good thing, because that thing was a comet, right on the line. Even though I guessed right, moved right, I couldn’t have put my racket on it.

Now the crowd rises. I call time, to have a talk with myself, aloud, saying: Win this point or I’ll never let you hear the end of it, Andre. Don’t hope he double-faults, don’t hope he misses.

You control what you can control. Return this serve with all your strength, and if you return it hard but miss, you can live with that. You can survive that. One return, no regrets.

Hit harder.

He tosses the ball, serves to my backhand. I jump in the air, swing with all my strength, but I’m so tight that the ball to his backhand side has mediocre pace. Somehow he misses the easy volley. His ball smacks the net and just like that, after twenty-two years and twenty-two million swings of a tennis racket, I’m the 1992 Wimbledon champion.

I fall to my knees. I fall on my stomach. I can’t believe the emotion pouring out of me.

When I stagger to my feet, Ivanisevic appears at my side. He hugs me and says warmly, Congratulations, Wimbledon champ. You deserved it today.

Great fight, Goran.

He pats my shoulder. He smiles, walks to his chair, and wraps his head in a towel. I understand his emotions better than my own. Much of my heart is with him as I sit in my chair, trying to collect myself.

A very British man approaches and tells me to stand. He hands me a large gold loving cup. I don’t know how to hold it, or where to go with it. He points and tells me to walk in a circle around the court. Hold the trophy over your head, he says.

I walk around the court holding the trophy above my head. The fans cheer. Another man tries to take the trophy from me. I pull it back. He explains that he’s going to have it engraved.

With my name.

I look at my box, wave to Nick and Wendi and Philly. They are all clapping, beaming.

Philly is hugging Nick. Nick is hugging Wendi. I love you, Wendi. I bow to the royals and walk off the court.

In the locker room I stare at my warped reflection in the trophy. I address the trophy and the warped reflection: All the pain and suffering you’ve caused me.

I’m unnerved by how giddy I feel. It shouldn’t matter this much. It shouldn’t feel this good.