Open: An Autobiography

The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn’t say is what it is I have found. Over the last twenty-one years I have found loyalty: You have pulled for me on the court, and also in life. I have found inspiration: You have willed me to succeed, sometimes even in my lowest moments. And I have found generosity: You have given me your shoulders to stand on, to reach for my dreams - dreams I could have never reached without you. Over the last twenty-one years I have found you, and I will take you and the memory of you with me for the rest of my life.

It’s the highest compliment I know how to pay them. I’ve compared them to Gil.

In the locker room it’s deathly quiet. I’ve noticed through the years that every locker room is the same when you lose. You walk in the door - which slams open, because you’ve pushed it harder than you needed to - and the guys always scatter from the TV, where they’ve been watching you get your ass kicked. They always pretend they haven’t been watching, haven’t been discussing you. This time, however, they remain gathered around the TV. No one moves. No one pretends. Then, slowly, everyone comes toward me. They clap and whistle, along with trainers and office workers and James the security guard.

Only one man remains apart, refusing to applaud. I see him in the corner of my eye. He’s leaning against a far wall with a blank look on his face and his arms tightly folded.

Connors.

He’s now coaching Roddick. Poor Andy.

It makes me laugh. I can only admire that Connors is who he is, still, that he never changes. We should all be so true to ourselves, so consistent.

I tell the players: You’ll hear a lot of applause in your life, fellas, but none will mean more to you than that applause - from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end.

Thank you all. Goodbye. And take care of each other.

THE BEGINNING

RAIN HAS BEEN FALLING OFF AND ON ALL DAY.

Stefanie peers at the sky and says, What do you think?

Come on, I say - let’s try. I’m willing if you are.

Willing. She frowns. She’s always willing, but she can’t speak for her calf, which has been giving her problems since she retired. Especially lately. She looks down. Darned calf. She has a charity match in Tokyo next week. She’s playing to raise money for a kindergarten she’s opened in Eritrea, and even though it’s only an exhibition she wants to do well. She feels the old pressure to do well. Also, she can’t help but wonder how much game she has left.

I wonder the same thing about myself. It’s been a year since I walked off the court for the last time at the U.S. Open. It’s autumn, 2007.

So we’ve been planning all week to get out there, hit with each other, but now the day has come and it’s the one rainy day all year in Vegas.

We can’t build a fire in the rain.

Stefanie looks again at the overcast sky. Then at the clock. Busy day, she says. She has to pick up Jaden at school. We only have this small window.

IF THE RAIN DOESN’T LET UP, if we don’t hit, I might go down to my school, because that’s where I go whenever I have time. I can’t believe how it’s grown: a 26,000-square-foot education complex with 500 students and a waiting list of eight hundred.

The $40 million campus features everything the kids could want. A high-tech TV produc-tion studio. A computer room with dozens of PCs along the walls and a big, white, fluffy couch. A topflight exercise room with machines as fancy as those at the most exclusive clubs in Vegas. There’s a weight room, a lecture hall, and bathrooms as modern and clean as the ones in the city’s finest hotels. Best of all, the place is still freshly painted and pristine, just as sparkling as it was on opening day. Students, parents, the neighborhood, everyone respects the school because everyone owns it. The area hasn’t completely rebounded since we arrived. While I was giving a tour recently, someone was shot across the street. And yet in eight years not one window has been broken, not one wall has been sprayed with graffiti.

Everywhere you look are little touches, subtle details that signify this school is different, this place is about excellence, through and through. On the front window is etched one large word, our unofficial school motto: BELIEVE. Every classroom is flooded with soft natural daylight. Indirect, southern, bounced from skylights to high-tech reflectors, it’s a diffuse glow that’s ideal for reading and concentrating. Teachers never need to flick a light switch, which saves energy and money, but also spares students the headaches and general gloom caused by standard fluorescents, which I remember all too well.