Open: An Autobiography

STEFANIE IS IN THE FINAL TOO. She loses to Lindsay Davenport. She had been playing mixed doubles as well, with McEnroe, and they had reached the semis, but she pulled out because of a bad hamstring. I’m in the locker room, getting dressed for my match with Pete, and McEnroe is telling a group of players that Stefanie left him in the lurch.

Can you believe this bitch? She asks to play mixed doubles with me and I fucking do it and then we’re in the semis and she backs out?

Brad puts a hand on my shoulder. Steady, champ.

I start strong against Pete. My mind is going in several directions at once - how dare Mac say those things about Stefanie? what was the deal with that hat Brooke was wearing? - but somehow I’m playing solid, crisp tennis. It’s 3:all in the first set, Pete serving at love:40.

Triple break point. I see Brad smiling, punching Perry, shouting, Come on! Let’s go! I let myself think about Borg, the last person to win the French and Wimbledon back to back, a feat now within my grasp.

I imagine Borg phoning me again to congratulate me. Andre? Andre, it’s me. Björn. I envy you.

Pete wakes me from my fantasy. Unreturnable serve. Unreturnable serve. Blur. Ace.

Game, Sampras.

I stare at Pete in shock. No one, living or dead, has ever served like that. No one in the history of the game could have returned those serves.

He takes me out in straight sets, finishing me off with two aces, two fiery exclamation points at the end of a seamless performance. It’s the first match I’ve lost in a slam in the last fourteen matches, a streak of dominance almost without precedence in my career. But history will record that it’s Pete’s sixth Wimbledon, and his twelfth slam overall, tying him for most all-time among men - as history should. Later, Pete tells me he never saw me hit the ball as hard and clean as I did those first six games, and it made him raise his game, amp up his second serve by twenty miles an hour.

In the locker room I need to take the standard drug test. I so badly want to piss and run back to the house and call Stefanie, but I can’t, because I have a bladder like a whale. It takes forever. Finally my bladder cooperates with my heart.

I drop my bag in the front hall and lunge for the phone as if it’s a drop shot. Fingers trembling, I dial. Straight to voice mail. I leave a message. Hi. It’s Andre. Tournament’s over. I lost to Pete. Sorry about your loss to Lindsay. Call me when you can.

I sit. I wait. A day passes. No call. Another day. No call.

I hold the phone in front of my face and tell it: Ring.

I dial her again, leave another message. Nothing.

I fly back to the West Coast. As I step off the plane, I check my messages. Nothing.

I fly to New York for a charity event. I check my voice mail every fifteen minutes. Nothing.

J.P. meets me in New York City. We hit the town. P. J. Clarke’s and Campagnola. A big ovation when we walk in. I see my friend Bo Dietl, the cop-turned-TV personality. He’s sitting at a long table with his crew: Mike the Russian, Shelly the Tailor, Al Tomatoes, Joey Pots and Pans. They insist we join them.

J.P. asks Joey Pots and Pans how he got his nickname.

I love to cook!

Later we all break up laughing when Joey’s cell phone rings. He flips it open and yells, Pots!

Bo says he’s having a party in the Hamptons this weekend. He insists that J.P. and I come. Pots is cooking, he says. Tell him your favorite food, whatever it is, he’ll cook it. It makes me think of those long-ago Thursday nights at Gil’s house.

I tell Bo we wouldn’t miss it.

THE CROWD AT BO’S HOUSE is like the cast of GoodFellas meets Forrest Gump. We sit around the pool, smoking cigars, drinking tequila. Every now and then I pull Stefanie’s number out of my pocket and study it. At one point I go into Bo’s house and call her from his landline, in case she’s screening my calls. Straight to voice mail.

Frustrated, restless, I drink three or four too many margaritas, then put my wallet and cell phone on a chair and do a cannonball into the pool, still dressed. Everyone follows. An hour later, I check my voicemail again. You have one new message.

For some reason my cell phone didn’t ring.

Hi, she says. I’m sorry I haven’t called you back. I got very sick. My body broke down after Wimbledon. I had to pull out of San Francisco and come home to Germany. But I’m feeling better now. Call me back when you can.

She doesn’t leave her number, of course, because she already gave me her number.

I pat my pockets. Where did I put that number?

My heart stops. I remember writing it on a paper napkin, which was in my pocket when I jumped in the pool. Gingerly I reach into my pocket and pull out the napkin. It looks like Tammy Faye Bakker’s makeup.

I remember that I phoned Stefanie once from Bo’s landline. I grab him by the arm and tell him that whatever it takes, whatever favors he has to call in, whoever he needs to grease or bully or kill, he must get the phone records for his house, with all the outgoing phone calls from today. And he must do it right now.