Open: An Autobiography

With a good night’s sleep under my belt I win my first-rounder against Jonas Björkman, from Sweden. In the second round I cruise past Karol Kucera, from Slovakia. In the third round I face a stiffer test from Andrea Gaudenzi, from Italy. He has a muscle-bound game. He likes to trade body blows, and if you respect him too much he gets more macho. I don’t show him any respect. But the ball doesn’t respect me. I’m making all sorts of unforced errors. Before I know what’s happening, I’m down a set and a break. I look to Brad. What should I do?

He yells: Stop missing!

Oh. Right. Sage advice. I stop missing, stop trying to hit winners, put the pressure back on Gaudenzi. It’s really that simple, and I scrape out an ugly, satisfying win.

In the quarters I’m on the verge of elimination against Ferreira. He’s up 5:4 in the third, serving for the match. But he’s never beaten me before, and I know exactly what’s going on inside his body. Something my father used to say comes back to me: If you stick a piece of charcoal up his ass, you’ll pull out a diamond. (Round, Tiffany cut.) I know Ferreira’s sphincter is squeezing shut, and this makes me confident. I rally, break him, win the match.

In the semis I meet Leander Paes, from India. He’s a flying jumping bean, a bundle of hy-perkinetic energy, with the tour’s quickest hands. Still, he’s never learned to hit a tennis ball.

He hits off-speed, hacks, chips, lobs - he’s the Brad of Bombay. Then, behind all his junk, he flies to the net and covers so well that it all seems to work. After an hour you feel as if he hasn’t hit one ball cleanly - and yet he’s beating you soundly. Because I’m prepared, I stay patient, stay calm, and beat Paes 7:6, 6:3.

In the final I play Sergi Bruguera, from Spain. The match is delayed by thunderstorms, and the forecasters say it will be five hours before we can get on the court. So I wolf down a spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy’s. Comfort food. On the day of a match, I don’t worry about calories and nutrition. I worry about having energy and feeling full. Also, because of my nerves, it’s rare that I’m hungry on match day, so any time I have an appetite I try to capitalize. I give my stomach whatever it asks for. Swallowing the last bite of spicy chicken, however, the clouds part, the storm blows away, and the heat comes. Now I have a spicy chicken sandwich sitting on my gut, it’s ninety degrees, and the air is as thick as gravy. I can’t move - and I have to play for a gold medal? So much for comfort food; I’m in extreme gastric discomfort.

But I don’t care. Gil asks how I feel, and I tell him: A-OK. I’m going to hustle for every ball, I’m going to make this guy run, and if he thinks he’s taking this medal back to Spain, he’s got another think coming.

Gil grins from ear to ear. That’s my boy.

It’s one of the rare times, Gil says, that he sees no fear in my eyes as I walk onto the court.

From the opening serve, I’m pounding Bruguera, moving him from corner to corner, making him cover a parcel of real estate the size of Barcelona. Every point is a blow to his midsection. In the middle of the second set we have a titanic rally. He wins the point to get back to deuce. He takes so much time getting ready for the next point that I could argue with the umpire. By rights I should argue, and Bruguera should get a warning. Instead I use the moment to wander over to the ballboy, grab a towel, whisper to Gil, How’s our friend looking over there?

Gil smiles. He nearly laughs, except that Gil never laughs during a fight.

Even though Bruguera has won the point, Gil sees, and I see, that winning the point will cost him the next six games.

Gil shouts: That’s my boy!

AS I MOUNT THE REVIEW STAND, I think: What will this feel like? I’ve watched this on TV so many times, can it possibly live up to my expectations? Or, like so many things, will it fall short?

I look left and right. Paes, the bronze winner, is on one side. Bruguera, the silver winner, is on the other. My platform is a foot higher - one of the few times I’m taller than my opponents.

But I’d feel ten feet tall on any surface. A man drapes the gold medal around my neck. The national anthem starts. I feel my heart swell, and it has nothing to do with tennis, or me, and thus it exceeds all my expectations.

I scan the crowd and spot Gil, Brooke, Brad. I look for my father, but he’s hiding. He told me the night before that I’ve managed to reclaim something taken from him years ago, and yet he doesn’t want to be visible, doesn’t want to detract from the specialness of my moment.

He doesn’t understand that this moment is special precisely because it’s not mine.

· · ·

DAYS LATER, for reasons I can’t begin to comprehend, the Olympic afterglow is gone. I’m on the court in Cincinnati, losing my mind. Playing for myself again, I’m smashing my racket in a fit of rage. I go on to win the tournament, however, which seems laughable, and only ag-gravates my sense that it’s all a joke.