Getting a Grip Page 25
The next day Mike, Lisa, and I headed to Paris. It was time to get ready for my favorite Grand Slam. We went for runs under the leafy overhanging trees in the Bois de Boulogne, the same park my dad and I had walked through on our first visit to Roland Garros, a lifetime ago. The thought that I could make a run for another French Open title was so strong, I could practically taste it. I beat Daniela Hantuchova in the fourth round and was on my way to the quarterfinals, against Venus. Uh-oh. My win over her in Australia had proven to me that I could do it, but she was still one of the only players I dreaded facing. When her game was on, she was unstoppable. Unfortunately for me, her game was more than on, and I kissed my hopes of another French Open title good-bye with a 6-4, 6-3 defeat.
Mike told me to shake it off and focus on Wimbledon. “Don’t let it get into your head. There’s a lot more tennis to be played,” he told me about a dozen times. His quick-reflex game was good preparation for the fast playing surfaces awaiting me. Lisa did an amazing job of coping with the full-fat European food. She never once freaked out or complained about the lack of skim milk. We ate every meal together and I kept my secret binges to a minimum.
I worked my butt off going into London. I wasn’t going to let the loss to Venus derail the momentum I’d had all year. The Williams sisters and Jennifer Capriati were holding on to the top three rankings with tight grips, but I was hanging in there at number four. It wasn’t high enough for the media, and as soon as I entered the All England Club, the rumors of my imminent retirement started again. One mathematically astute journalist pointed out that at twenty-eight and a half years old, I was exactly twice the age as when I’d turned pro. Did I see a date for retirement in the near future? No, I didn’t, I said. Truthfully, the concept of ending my pro career was starting to pop up in my consciousness, but I wasn’t the kind of person to go on a farewell tour. I knew that one day, when I was sure, I’d just stop. I didn’t need to give the world advance notice.
Most interviews over those two weeks focused on these questions:
“If it hadn’t been for Hamburg, how much more do you think you could have accomplished?”
“If you were playing now like you were playing before the stabbing, how do you think you’d fare against the Williams sisters?”
“If you hadn’t stayed away from the game for two and a half years, would you be in a better position now?”
I tried to be as polite as possible, but I absolutely hated answering those questions. I was so tired of asking all of the what-ifs; I’d been doing it myself for years and I didn’t want to do it again. There was no point. What happened in Hamburg wasn’t my choice; it wasn’t a stupid mistake or a lapse in good judgment on my part that took me out of the game. There was nothing I could have done about it then and there was nothing I could do to change it now, almost ten years later.
Why, on the cusp of turning thirty, was I still trying to win Wimbledon, the only Grand Slam that had eluded me? Easy: I’m stubborn. I was still playing great tennis, and back in 1992 I’d thought I’d have plenty of time to win on those grass courts. Time slipped away faster than I ever could have imagined, and I wanted to try again. I didn’t want to live with the regret that I didn’t at least try.
I got through the first four rounds without much trouble, but knew I was in for a fight in the quarterfinal. The field of top ten women was so strong, if I made it to the final eight, I’d face a battle no matter who I was matched up against. The draw put me against Justine Henin; I’d beaten her in every one of our last four matches. She took an early lead and had me at 2-4. I rallied and advanced to 5-4 before giving up three straight games. After losing the first set, I tried to banish the negative thoughts from my head. I didn’t want to give up before the match was over. The thoughts stayed anyway. You’re getting too old. She’s faster than you are. Come on, do you really think you can win another Grand Slam? I couldn’t get them out of my head. I couldn’t access the focus, and my confidence was shot. Amid rain delays that pushed our match into the cold night, I blew a 4-1 lead in the second set and lost 7-6. The last chance I’d probably ever have to make a run in Wimbledon was over. The crowd gave us a standing ovation. I packed my bag and hurried off the court, furious that I’d sabotaged myself again.
39
A Well-Timed Rain Delay
Summer came to a close and I packed my bags for New York City. I was still disappointed after my Wimbledon loss but there was one good thing: I was going to New York with zero expectations. I had no pressure and I decided I was just going to give it everything I had.
The crowd, which is always rowdy, was tremendous through all of my matches. New Yorkers break every rule of tennis etiquette, and I love it. One of the best parts about playing in New York was that my honorary coach would be there. I’d met David Dinkins, the mayor of New York City, in 1992 when I received an award for being the WTA’s Player of the Year. After my stabbing, he had written me a heartfelt letter and called to check on me. It meant a lot during a time when I felt incredibly alone. Since my return to tennis, “Coach” Dinkins had been my most loyal supporter and hadn’t missed a single one of my U.S. Open matches. Throughout the years, he has always given me the same advice: “Everything comes and goes in life. Nothing is permanent, so don’t get upset about things that don’t matter. Your only responsibility is to make sure you spend as much time as you can doing something that you love. If you do that, it will all work out in the end.”
There was another reason I was excited to go to New York that August: Benjamin, a guy I’d met at a friend’s engagement in Boston when I got home from London, was going to be there. At the engagement dinner party, my friend had slyly seated us next to each other. While we were the only single people there, and her plan was pretty transparent, it worked like a charm. Benjamin was a world-traveling corporate type who loved food. The first night we met we spent most of the evening arguing over whether poor restaurant service can be made up for with exquisite sauces. I said of course it could; he disagreed. It was a very obnoxious foodie conversation that bored everyone around us to tears, but we had a great time. And he had something going for him that no other guy I’d ever dated had: he was overweight. His less-than-ripped physique was comforting to me; I interpreted it as a silent acceptance of how I looked. The European trip had taken a lot out of me and, despite Lisa’s vigilant eye, I’d put on another eight pounds. My size twelves were starting to feel tight.
With Coach Dinkins cheering me on even louder than the enthusiastic New Yorkers, I got through the first couple of rounds without much trouble. Then, in the third round, I blew a 6-1, 5-1 lead to Yoon-Jeong Cho. I wasn’t playing in the moment and she capitalized on it. I lost the second set 7-5 and I was furious. I pulled out all the stops and threw my rarely used drop shot into the mix to steal the third set.
Hingis was waiting for me in the fourth round. We’d been going head-to-head since 1996 and I knew what to expect. She’d have me running back and forth until my legs turned to Jell-O. One of the smartest tacticians on the tour, Martina was brilliant at keeping me on the run, something I despised. It was hard enough when I was skinny; it would be nearly impossible now. Our scheduled match was rained out and Mike wanted me to rest, so I went back to the hotel to kill some time. Lisa made sure there wasn’t any food in the minibar. I was flipping through the television channels when I saw that a tennis match was on. That’s weird. I thought everything was rained out. Then I recognized one of the players: she was a younger, fitter me, and she looked fierce. CBS was broadcasting the epic duel between Jennifer and me from the 1991 U.S. Open semifinal. We were just two kids with our careers in front of us. It felt like ancient history.
I hate watching videos of myself and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve done it, so I reached for the remote to change the channel. Suddenly I stopped. My youthful clone had just hit a game-winning killer forehand right down the line, and the camera panned to the crowd. There was my dad, clapping and smiling and looking so much
, well, so much like himself—the version I remembered most vividly—that I felt like I could reach into the screen and hug him. I sat on the edge of my bed with my eyes glued to the set. I’d never seen my dad’s reactions during that match. As usual, he cheered for my opponent whenever she hit a nice shot—he’d done that since I was playing in twelve-and-under tournaments in Europe, and it used to drive me crazy—and looks of elation and determination crossed his face, depending on how I was doing. My heart jumped into my throat every time the camera panned to him. But I also couldn’t believe I was the same person as the one I was seeing on the screen. She seemed so intense and focused. It had been a decade since I’d last won the U.S. Open. I wasn’t a hungry teenager untouched by the sadness and tragedy of life anymore, but I knew I could get some of that focus and intensity back if I really wanted to.
Riding a high from seeing that match, I walked into the stadium with renewed purpose. On my way in, I glimpsed a huge sponsor ad from a camera company. It was a photo of me from that 1991 victory. I had my hands thrown up in the air in celebration, and a smile had taken over my entire face. “Take home a memory,” the caption said. I was going to do my best. I came out on fire. I played aggressively and didn’t let go. I think Martina was thrown off balance. Her winning record against me was close to 75 percent, but I wasn’t playing like it. I won the match 6-4, 6-2 and advanced to the quarterfinal match against—take a guess—Venus Williams. Seriously? Again? These Grand Slam brackets were killing me. She was going for her third straight U.S. Open title and she looked unstoppable. Her 115-mile-per-hour serves had been blazing trails all week long. But I had hope, and it was buoyed by the great run another member of the old guard was having on the men’s side.
Pete Sampras, at a rickety thirty-one years of age, was on the unlikely mission to add a record fourteenth Grand Slam title to his résumé. He was deep in the muck of a thirty-three-tournament losing streak and was the seventeenth seed coming into the tournament. Journalists dismissed him: Sure, it’d be appealing in a sentimental way, but come on, what are the chances? Funny thing is, it didn’t seem anybody told Pete he didn’t have a chance. He soared through the first several rounds and was playing like he was a decade younger. I saw him in the players’ lounge before the quarterfinals after his fourth-round win and wished him luck. As always, he was incredibly gracious and I couldn’t get over how amazing his wife, Bridgette, looked. The players’ lounge at Grand Slam tournaments was a constant parade of the gorgeous girlfriends and wives of the guys on the ATP. Feeling like a gigantic clod who’d just walked into a fashion shoot, I usually spent no more than five minutes in there.
If he can do it, then I can too, I thought. We’re not out of the game yet. Pete made a phenomenal run to the final against Agassi. It was like the clock of professional tennis had just been rewound twelve years. In a fantastic four-set match, Pete emerged victorious and left prediction-making journalists all over the world stunned. I didn’t have as much luck. Venus consistently held her serve and I never really got in the game. She beat me 6-2, 6-3 and I beat a hasty retreat to meet Benjamin at my favorite Italian restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Lisa gave me a pep talk before I headed out. I wasn’t going to drown my frustration in pasta. At dinner I followed her instructions. Benjamin looked at me like I was crazy when I ordered steamed fish with a side of spinach. I was so tempted to share his fried calamari, but the anger over losing in the quarterfinals was still fresh in my mind. If getting back into Grand Slam final winning form meant starving myself, then screw it. That’s what I would do. But my resolve only lasted until dessert. I ordered cheesecake, had half of Benjamin’s gelato, and ate more than my fair share of the sugar cookies that were placed in between us. I went to bed feeling guilty, angry, and disappointed.
40
A Passing of the Grunting Torch
I ended the year with another quarterfinal loss to Venus at the season-ending championship. After one year in Munich it had moved back to the States and was being held in Los Angeles. After my loss to Venus, my rank dropped to seventh. Mike had just gotten married and decided he didn’t want to travel anymore. I couldn’t blame him; the last year had been crazy. We’d gone from Australia to Japan to France to Qatar to the United Arab Emirates to California to Miami to South Carolina to Madrid, then back to Paris, then to London, followed by Missouri, then back to California, then New York, on to Bahia for the second year in a row, and ended the year with seven stops in five weeks: Los Angeles, Denver, Florida’s Delray Beach, Ireland, Baltimore, and two exhibitions in Minnesota and Winnipeg, Canada. It was a schedule that wasn’t for the faint of heart, nor was it for the recently married. Lisa and I parted ways too. I would have given anything to have had her willpower and discipline when it came to food, but I just didn’t. I was tired of sneaking out of the house, eating in my car, and lying to her about how well I’d been sticking to my diet. I couldn’t keep it up and I wasn’t losing weight. It was time for me to find another magical solution.
Before I had the chance to look for a new coach, I had a bigger problem to deal with. My right foot, which had been giving me problems on and off for the past two seasons, was flaring up big-time. My doctor gave me strict instructions to lay off it. I took that to mean stop working out and enjoy as many dinners with Benjamin as possible. I made a dozen trips to Boston to visit him and we ate our way through that city. I never once felt self-conscious with him: it was fantastic. I felt like he really liked me for me, not for how I looked on his arm. I thought being with him was freeing. But it wasn’t. I started “shadow eating” with him. If he ordered dessert, then it was a bright green light for me to go ahead and order it too. If he ordered two fat-laden appetizers, then I certainly wasn’t going to just order one. On and on I went, using his unhealthy actions to justify my own. It didn’t take long before my size fourteens were holding a front-and-center position in my closet.
One weekend I flew up to Boston to see him. I hadn’t met any of his friends and he was throwing a big dinner at his place so everyone could meet me. I filled a suitcase with my old waistless, flowy dresses and threw in some oversize sweaters to combat the northeastern cold. My physiotherapy sessions had been keeping me busy and I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks. I couldn’t wait to get there. The dinner was the night I arrived. A fire was crackling in the fireplace, great bottles of wine were opened, and the conversation was sparkling. We looked like an ad for the Brooks Brothers winter catalog. His friends were lovely and I was thinking how happy I was that I came up for the weekend. When I was in the middle of talking to his best friends about high-yield bonds—they were all very knowledgeable financial types—Benjamin came up behind me. I was sitting on an overstuffed ottoman and I slid over to make room for him. He sat down and put his arm around my waist. Oh, how sweet, I thought. Minor PDA in front of his friends. Then I felt his fingers curl around my side and he pinched a good chunk of my skin. Ouch!
“Whoa, honey, you better watch it. You’re getting a little too pleasantly plump around there.” He laughed and took a sip of wine as though he’d just said the wittiest thing. I felt like I’d just been slapped in the face. All of his friends heard his comment and I could feel my face flushing red. I was shocked. Never once in four months had he ever mentioned my weight or made me feel like outward appearances mattered in the slightest. In fact, I thought he loved the fact that I could keep up with his gourmet habits. It was like I didn’t even know him. Normally I would’ve laughed it off and meekly disappeared into another room. But his comment and whole demeanor had shocked me and my embarrassment turned into rip-roaring anger.
“Oh, really?” I challenged. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?” I gave his belly a swift smack and got up in a defiant huff.
“Whatever,” he said dismissively. “You’re a chick—it’s different.” Did he just call me a “chick”? He looked around at his friends as though waiting for their unanimous agreement. A few guys chuckled but the rest just busied the
mselves looking at their wineglasses. I was humiliated and furious. That’s it, I thought. I don’t need him anymore. I am focusing 100 percent on getting back on the court. We broke up later that night after everyone had gone home, and I caught the first flight back to Florida the next morning.
By the start of 2003, my foot had healed enough to play in the Asia/ Australia swing. I’d also made a New Year’s resolution to eat one boiled egg for breakfast every day until I weighed 140 pounds. Rational? Nope, not at all. These absolutes would just pop into my head and I’d convince myself that each one was the key to getting skinny. The egg obsession lasted eight days, hardly long enough to lose even one of the twenty-eight pounds clinging to my body like a stubborn barnacle on a rock.
My first stop of the year was an exhibition in Hong Kong, where the players were treated to tailor-made, exquisitely elegant dresses and an opening-day ceremony replete with fire-breathing dragons and enormous animal puppets dancing and singing. I was a little paranoid about how large my dress had to be cut, but the seamstress was a lovely woman who made me feel very comfortable. Four hours after she took my measurements, I had a stunning red gown delivered to my hotel room. Even Aunt Klara would have been impressed. I was coachless but brought Andreas, a hitting partner from Hamburg whose lighthearted, easy demeanor was what I needed as I contemplated my next step. Who was going to coach me? What diet should I go on? Did I need another food babysitter? How fast could I lose the weight?
My semifinal match was against a fifteen-year-old upstart with legs up to her ears. Her name? Maria Sharapova. I beat her 6-3, 6-0, but I could see the potential she had to shoot to the top. It didn’t take her long: she won Wimbledon two years later. After our match, the conversation I had with Chris Evert all those years ago came flooding back to me. I finally understood with tremendous clarity what she’d been talking about. Someone younger and faster would come along to replace the seasoned veterans. The power hitters who emerged when I first came back in ’95 were a new generation in terms of playing style, but Maria was taking things to another level still. After the match, the journalists were beside themselves.