Open: An Autobiography

I should have expected it: the first thing Peter wants to see when he arrives in Nevada isn’t Hoover Dam or the Strip but my father’s ball machine. He’s heard all about it, and now he wants to study it up close. I drive him to my father’s house, and along the way he chatters amiably. But I don’t understand much. Is it German? No, it’s a hybrid of German and English and tennis. He’s asking questions about my father’s game. How often does my father play?

How well does he play? He’s trying to size up my father before we get there.

My father doesn’t do well with people who don’t speak perfect English, and he doesn’t do well with strangers, so I know we have two strikes on us as we walk through my parents’ front door. I’m relieved, however, to see that sport is a universal language, that these two men, both aficionados, both former athletes, know how to use their bodies to communicate, through swings and gestures and grunts. I tell my father that Peter would like to see the famous ball machine. My father is flattered. He takes us outside to his backyard court and wheels out the dragon. He revs the motor, raises the pedestal high. He’s talking nonstop, giving Peter a lecture, shouting to be heard above the dragon - blissfully unaware that Peter doesn’t understand a word.

Go stand there, my father tells me.

He hands me a racket, points me to the other side of the court, aims the machine at my head.

Demonstrate, he says.

I’m having shuddering, violent flashbacks, and only the thought of the tequila waiting for me back home keeps me functioning.

Peter positions himself behind me and watches while I hit.

Ahh, he says. Ja. Good.

My father cranks up the machine. He clicks the dial until the balls are coming almost in twos. My father must have added a gear to the dragon. I don’t remember balls ever coming this fast. I don’t have time to bring back my racket and hit the second ball. Peter scolds me for missing. He takes the racket from me, pushes me aside. This, he says, is the shot you should have had. You never had this shot. He shows me the famous Stefanie Slice, which he claims to have taught Stefanie. You need a quieter racket, he says. Like this.

My father is livid. In the first place, Peter isn’t listening to my father’s lecture. In the second place, Peter is interfering with my father’s star pupil. My father comes around the net, shouting: That slice is bullshit! If Stefanie had this shot, she would have been better off. He then demonstrates the two-handed backhand he taught me.

With this shot, my father says, Stefanie would have won thirty-two slams!

The two men can’t understand each other, and yet they’re managing a heated argument. I turn my back, concentrate on hitting balls. I train all my attention on the dragon. Occasionally I hear Peter mention my rivals, Pete and Rafter, and then my father responds with Stefanie’s nemeses, Monica Seles and Lindsay Davenport. My father then mentions boxing. He uses a boxing analogy, and Peter howls in protest.

I was a boxer too, Peter says - and I would have knocked you out.

You can say a lot of things to my father. But not that. Never that. I cringe, knowing what’s coming. I wheel just in time to see Stefanie’s sixty-three-year-old father take off his shirt and tell my sixty-nine-year-old father: Look at me. Look at the shape I’m in. I’m taller than you. I can keep you at bay with my jab.

My father says, You think so? Come on! You and me.

Peter is trash-talking in German, my father is trash-talking in Assyrian, and they’re both putting up their fists. They’re circling, feinting, bobbing and weaving, and just before one of them throws hands, I step in, push them apart.

My father shouts, This fucker is talking shit!

That may be, Pops, but - please.

They’re winded, sweating. My father’s eyes are dilated. Peter’s bare chest is beaded with sweat. They see, however, that I’m not going to let them mix it up, so they go to neutral corners. I turn off the dragon, and we all walk off the court.

At home, Stefanie kisses me and asks how it went.

I’ll tell you later, I say, reaching for the tequila.

I don’t know when a margarita has ever tasted so good.

AFTER PLAYING WELL IN THE DAVIS CUP, I lose early in Scottsdale, a tournament I typically own. I play poorly in Atlanta and pull a hamstring. I lose in the third round in Rome and realize, reluctantly, that this can’t go on. I can’t play every tournament. Approaching thirty years old, I must choose my battles more carefully.

Every other interview now is about the end. I tell reporters that my best tennis is ahead of me, and they smile, wincingly, as if they hope I’m kidding. I’ve never been more serious.

When the time comes to defend at the 2000 French Open, I walk into Roland Garros expecting to feel waves of nostalgia. But it’s all different - the place has been renovated.