Trophy Son Read online

  “The tennis tour is so much more fun than it used to be.”

  I won my match that day. I was physically fresh, mentally rusty and would have lost to a top-ten player. I had great sex with Ana back in the hotel after, reckless, insatiable for each other, moving from room to room, then resting, napping on each other like cats, then sex again.

  Ana’s presence at the tournament announced our couple-dom. That same day, the Entertainment Tonight website had named us Anaton and pronounced her engagement to Caleb Casa officially dead.

  We ordered room service for dinner rather than go out and I said, “I’m sorry there isn’t more for you to do here this week.”

  “Don’t be, this is perfect. I get to watch great tennis from the player’s box, I’m getting some writing done, and I’m with you.”

  “You have a life to get back to.”

  “It’s a week. There’s no place in the world I’d rather spend this week.”

  I cupped my hands around her jaw and kissed her forehead.

  She said, “I want to be with you and I can be here without any problem. In a few years it’ll be your turn. You’ll have to sit in a Broadway theater watching play rehearsals.”

  “I can’t wait.” I dropped my hands. “When I retire, there are no more tournaments on grand stages, first-class travel, fancy parties with fancy people. I’m just another guy without a high school diploma.”

  “That’s exactly the person I want to get to know better.”

  My second-round match was a terrible grind. He was a left-handed Spanish player, veteran, great on clay, steady as hell. Every game seemed to go to deuce, back and forth. I had moments of playing like my best self but that’s never enough. Tons of guys can play great for moments.

  Each set went to a tiebreaker. I’d have flashes of great stuff to go up, then he kept coming, staying with me, drawing even then taking the lead. My body was still strong, willing, needing a leader to guide it, but my mind was still not tournament sharp.

  I lost to this Spanish veteran who had barely taken games off me in our three previous meetings. I was less than I had been before but he was also more. I wondered what steroid program he was on.

  In my months away from the tour Ben Archer had taken over the number one ranking. He’d been hovering around the top five for a few years, then put together a strong half season that put him in the top spot. I had mixed emotions because I liked Ben, but it felt unjust to me that after everything I’d been through, a lesser player on emotional cruise control could accomplish the same, leave the same legacy that I had feared would elude me, a legacy that I had felt desperate to establish because I needed something to show for all the hell of it.

  In the hotel room I said, “I hope you weren’t falling in love with Houston.”

  “Paris in a couple months sounds good.”

  “I’ll be playing better by then.”

  “I know you will.”

  “The saying goes, you don’t need to be the best player every day, you just need to be better than the one guy across the net. Couldn’t do it today.” I hated losing. I hated talking about a loss. Having Ana with me was one more reason to stop both.

  “It was your first tournament back.”

  I nodded. “I still have some great tennis in me.” I kissed her. “Let’s pack.”

  CHAPTER

  42

  A player’s will has endurance that can be trained and conditioned. The will can get in poor condition more easily than the body. I made the semis in each of the remaining three majors my first season back. It was a decent showing because I was able to feed off the energy of the large stage.

  It was the smaller tournaments where I struggled to keep my intensity. When people talk about mental toughness and a test of wills between players, that’s not just something to say. There’s an invisible battle in every match, simultaneous with the points played with a racket.

  Even in a match that ends in victory a player might lose more than a hundred points. That’s a hundred points that didn’t go your way, ended in disappointment, that you need to bounce back from immediately and play on at your best. If a player can’t do that every single time, whole games slip away, whole sets, whole matches. It’s really damn hard. Damn tedious.

  I was back in Atlanta of all places. Ana wasn’t with me. What should have been an easy forehand winner up the line I sent two feet wide. The miss angered me. Fatigued me, at the thought of the hole I’d needlessly dug for myself in that game. I went on to lose the next point, then the game, then the set.

  My mental state was exhausted, worn out. I had the mental fragility of my teenage years, but with more firepower to mask it. With my firepower failing, I had the horrible thought return from my youth: Kill me quickly. I disappeared from the match in a way that I hadn’t done since before turning pro. I lost 6-0 in the final set.

  I could feel the physical wear and tear of the season on my body more than ever, though if I wanted to get the number one ranking back, it was more important that I get my head in shape. But my willingness to suffer was almost gone.

  I went to the locker room by myself. I’d talk with Gabe after the press conference and a shower. I dropped my racket bag then slumped into a cushioned chair. At twenty-eight and as a former number one, I was an elder statesman in the locker room. Other than a “Hi, Anton,” people spoke with me only after I spoke with them first. There was a general feeling that any player after reaching number one could be as bad a diva as Jimmy Connors.

  I sat in silence, letting my mind rest, heal from the injury it had just suffered. My eyes were open, looking through the floor at nothing. Players went about their routines around me, maybe glancing, knowing it was better to leave me be.

  In a moment, two bright white tennis sneakers came into my view and stopped in front of me. I followed the legs up to the stomach, chest and face to see Martin Sage, a former player turned coach.

  Martin was an American who retired around the time I first came on the tour. Early forties now, coaching a young Australian kid who had good talent. Martin had been a top-twenty player himself for long stretches in his career.

  “Nice sneakers,” I said.

  “Haven’t seen much action yet.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Take a walk?”

  I knew Martin a bit. We’d had maybe four conversations in ten years. None of them was over a walk so it was odd, but I thought what the hell. “Sure.”

  He reached out a hand and lifted me up from the chair. There was a back door from the locker room that led to a player’s entrance from the parking lot behind a security checkpoint. Plenty of people could see us but nobody was closer than thirty yards. We stopped there and Martin said in a normal conversational volume, “How are you?”

  “Shitty. What kind of question is that?”

  He laughed. “I’m sorry. I meant bigger picture.”

  “I’m alright,” I said.

  He nodded and waited awhile before talking again. “I don’t know you that well, Anton, but I’ve always liked you. Always thought you were a class act.”

  Martin was a respected guy around the tour, especially among Americans. He hadn’t been a star player but everyone liked him. “Thanks, Martin.”

  “You can still play some great tennis if you want to. Dominant tennis.”

  “I think so too.”

  “Take it from a retired guy. The window slams shut very fast. People think their babies grow up too fast. They should try having a professional tennis career.”

  “Clock’s ticking, I know.” The advice was a little condescending but coming from a good place and somehow I didn’t mind it.

  “Make what you can of it, my man. I’m rooting for you.” He clapped my shoulder. “So you’re dating Ana Stokke? How’s it going?”

  “Is that rhetorical? It’s fantastic, of course.” Martin was single and known to be a ladies’ man.

  He laughed again. He laughed easily. Maybe retirement was okay. “Well, hang
on to her.”

  “You bet.”

  The laugh faded out and I realized it came easily because it had little substance, was hollow, nearly weightless, only a cover. “I mean it. Hang on for dear life. Not an expression. Hang on.”

  This was weird enough that I changed the subject. “How’s coaching going?”

  “It’s good, you know?” he said. “It’s good to be around the game. Maybe I’ll make a run at the announcers’ booth one day if I can get McEnroe to back me. Anyway, you know the deal. What the hell else are we going to do?”

  I wasn’t ready to sign on for that. I feared it, but still had hopes of a second act of Anton, a second life that was me and not tennis, but I didn’t want to say any of that to Martin so I said, “Right.”

  Some fans screamed to us from the ticket-holders parking lot. I looked over and several were taking pictures with their phones. I waved.

  Martin waved too and smiled. He said, “If you’re going to die at age thirty-five, professional sports is the best life ever. If you’re going to die at eighty-five, it’s the worst. The best life ever lived by anyone in any walk of life was Lou Gehrig.”

  CHAPTER

  43

  I won the Doha tournament in Qatar to start the next calendar year. The Qatar ExxonMobil Open. The tournament drew top players and it was a solid win for me so I was surprised I didn’t feel more of an emotional lift.

  Ana was with me. Qatar was one of the more fun destinations so she shifted her schedule for me and got to do some sightseeing, ride Arabian horses. I was physically beat up after the final so we celebrated the win with wine and room service in our hotel suite.

  Ana said, “You look exhausted.”

  Something a woman can say to a man but not the other way around. “I feel it,” I said.

  She poured the wine. My back was killing me and I couldn’t sit comfortably. Bobby had given me a cortisone shot after the match but I was still in pain. Ana carried some pillows over then stood by me not knowing where to put them.

  “I think the best position is if I just sit up as straight as I can.”

  “This better not affect our sex life.”

  “We’ll find a way.” In the morning Ana would fly back to New York and I would fly to Melbourne. “Or I’ll quit.”

  She poured more wine. “You can’t quit now. I’m just beginning to enjoy being a tennis roadie.”

  I smiled. “I’m almost done.”

  She looked at me wondering if we were still joking or if I had turned serious. She said, “Don’t make tennis decisions based on me. Truly, I’m fine. I’m okay doing this for a while.”

  This communicated a lot to me. The words and the tone. She loved me, but this was a system that wouldn’t last. Not more than a year or so. “Well, I’m almost done anyway. For lots of reasons.”

  “You’re playing great tennis.”

  “That stopped mattering to me. Playing great matters only when it makes you happy. Borg was playing great when he quit. He just stopped wanting to play anymore.” I drank my wine and tried standing up to relieve my back. “Maybe I’ve done everything I set out to do in tennis. I made it to number one, I won a major, I made plenty of money. I met you.” She was seated and I kissed the top of her head. “Now it’s drive for the sake of drive. More winning, more winning, build the résumé, the legacy. As my father would do it.”

  “You’re very different from your father.”

  “But I’ve internalized him as my tormentor. This wasn’t what I chose, but here I am on my own and choosing it, every day, pushing myself as hard as he did.” I twisted and untwisted my spine in a stretch. “At least I’m doing the pushing, it’s a willful act, but what does that say about me?”

  “That you’re a champion, that you demand excellence of yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that. Your father pushed you into tennis so you made the most of it, and you’ll make the most of whatever you decide to do next.”

  “Maybe I’m becoming the monster. I’m my own monster now, and what if I have a son or a daughter? And I’m irreparably a monster?”

  I felt certain I would not push my imagined kids too hard but be kind and loving and if anything would overcompensate and be too soft. But maybe it would be an instinct I couldn’t resist or even identify, like people who complain about angry soccer sideline parents and then become them. Ana said what I’d hoped she’d say. “That’s outrageous.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “If you want to quit because winning tournaments doesn’t make you as happy as it used to, then fine. But don’t quit because you think you’re transforming into a beast.”

  I hadn’t had the same feeling about tennis since I’d come back from the suspension. This was the same period when Ana and I had gotten together so it was hard to know if the change was due to the time away or if Ana had given me a window to what a life away from tennis could be, or if it was just that I was in more physical pain at that age.

  My world ranking was back up to four. The next spots were always the hardest to make up but I wanted to do it. I wanted to get to number one or win another major, then say good-bye.

  CHAPTER

  44

  I finally had some time in my New York apartment before travelling to play Cincinnati. Ana was also in New York but her new play was running four weeks of preview performances at the Ethel Barrymore on Broadway before opening night so she was there every evening.

  I went to the downstairs bar at the Gramercy Hotel with some other players who were decompressing for a few days in the city. Adam came with us. Some of the big-name female players would travel with security but on a social night I was always fine if just a few friends came along for insulation.

  The downstairs at Gramercy was a huge, open square room with comfortable chairs and sofas that created different conversation pods. Security at the door was selective about the people they let inside but they knew we were coming and one of the guys in a suit and earpiece led Adam and me back into the bar lounge.

  Darren Rose was one of the guys meeting us. He was thirty-six, one of the oldest on tour, and still a top doubles player. He’d always been a doubles specialist. Big guy, about 6'6", big serve, monster at net. He had blond surfer hair that took a few years off his appearance and he could pass for Laird Hamilton. Darren was with Toby McInerny, another doubles player.

  They were sitting in a square with three sofas that had been cordoned off by the same red velvet rope used outside. The enclave made a spectacle of us but gave us a buffer. A hotel security guard unclipped the rope from a corner post and waved us in. There were about a hundred people in the room outside our square watching us.

  “Come in, gentlemen,” said Darren. He gestured to a coffee table in the middle of the sofas where he’d ordered bottle service. There was a liter of Ketel One vodka, carafes of orange juice, cranberry, club soda and a bowl of lemons, limes and orange wedges.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Adam.

  We sat and Adam made two vodka sodas for us.

  “Where’s your super-hot girlfriend?” said Darren.

  “Working. Directing a new play she wrote.”

  “She might have had the courtesy to send a few friends in her stead.” Darren liked to talk smart, as though it was a skill and benefit that came with being thirty-six.

  There were several very good-looking girls, and maybe some hookers, watching our group. “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble tonight.”

  “I guess not,” said Darren. He looked over at two girls in miniskirts who had been looming by our red rope. They were attractive enough to reasonably expect an invitation in, and Darren said, “Ladies, come have a drink.” He nodded to the security guard who unclipped the rope then clipped it again behind them. They slotted into the sofa with Darren and Toby and paired up easily as though all were following stage direction. Toby fixed four new drinks then each girl nestled under the wing of a doubles player.

  “Don’t let me hold you back,” I said to Adam. He
knew I wouldn’t mess around on Ana, nor did I want a photo of a girl on my arm to go around the Internet.

  “I’d like to have a drink or two first.” He clinked my glass. “To Cincinnati.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  I looked at Darren. I liked him. He was one of those guys with a big personality, always smiling, always having fun, always with something to say, never complaining. He was harmless. Unless you were a girl who expected things might end differently. Or you were the husband or boyfriend of the girl. I suppose the thing is he meant no harm.

  But I saw him differently in that moment, past the surfer hair and the still-hard muscles of a professional athlete. I saw for the first time the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, his worry, regret, as though the oils of his Dorian Gray painting were oozing back into him.

  He looked old to me. Seated next to the fresh, young and pliant girls he looked old and pathetic. Desperate for their youth. I saw more fear in his eyes than I did in the timid and wondering eyes of the girls.

  I remember video clips of Patrick Ewing running the floor in his last NBA season. He looked like a lame dinosaur and it hurt my own knees just to watch him. He was one of the greats but he’d stayed too long.

  Darren looked the same to me. Not in any physical way, and he could still play great. Just that he was out of place. He shouldn’t have been here, but I knew why a guy like that stayed. Not the money. Not even the game. It was the lifestyle.

  And that’s the irony. The sick truth of it, for any top player, for any child prodigy gone pro, for me and my relationship with tennis.

  We hung on to this thing that crippled our humanity because now that our humanity was crippled, this thing was all that we believed could make us happy anymore.

  I got cortisone shots about once a tournament. I could sit in one position about five minutes before my back would start to hurt. “Atom Bomb, you look bored,” said Adam.