Open

by Andre Agassi

Watching it fall is one of the great joys of my life. I raise my arms and my racket falls on the clay. I’m sobbing. I’m rubbing my head. I’m terrified by how good this feels. Winning isn’t supposed to feel this good. Winning is never supposed to matter this much. But it does, it does, I can’t help it. I’m overjoyed, grateful to Brad, to Gil, to Paris—even to Brooke and Nick. Without Nick I wouldn’t be here. Without all the ups and downs with Brooke, even the misery of our final days, this wouldn’t be possible. I even reserve some gratitude for myself, for all the good and bad choices that led here.

She’s coming, dude, she’s coming. I look up like an Irish setter. If I had a tail it would be wagging. She’s thirty yards off, wearing tight-fitting blue warm-up pants. I notice for the first time that she walks slightly pigeon-toed, like me. Her blond hair is pulled back in a ponytail and gleaming in the sun. It looks, yet again, like a halo.

Sleeping pills are powerless against this kind of anxiety.

While talking to her I go skiing around the living room in my sweat socks. I schuss across the wood floors. Brad pleads with me to stop, to sit in a chair. He’s sure I’m going to break a leg or tweak a knee. I settle into an easy cross-country motion around the perimeter of the room. He smiles and tells Perry, We’re going to have a good tournament. It’s going to be a good Wimbledon.

If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward. I’ve lived that.

She gives me her cell phone number. I write it on a paper napkin, kiss it, and put it in my tennis bag.

I’m wearing white tennis shorts. I didn’t think to bring a bathing suit, because I’m a desert kid. I don’t do well in the water. But I’ll swim to China right now if that’s what it takes. In just my tennis shorts I walk out to where Stefanie’s standing. She laughs at my swimwear, and pretends to be shocked that I’m going commando. I tell her I’ve been like this since the French Open, and I’m never going back.

She smiles. Off she goes. I go tearing after her. It feels as if I’ve been chasing her all my life, and now I’m literally chasing her. At first it’s all I can do to keep pace, but near the finish line I close the gap. She reaches the red balloon two lengths ahead of me. She turns, and peals of her laughter carry back to me like streamers on the wind. I’ve never been so happy to lose.

It came out several years ago. It’s called Shadowlands. It’s about C. S. Lewis, the writer. I hear a sound like the phone dropping. That’s impossible, she says. That’s simply not possible. That’s my favorite movie. It’s about committing, opening yourself to love.

I can’t help myself. I want to know. I ask with a mixture of curiosity and envy. She says it feels fine. She’s at peace, more than ready to be done.

Unlike my father, however, Peter never stopped managing her career and her finances, and he spent two years in jail for tax evasion. The subject never comes up, but feels at times like the German Elefant in the room.

It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. It sounds like a sweeter, softer version of my father. But when Stefanie says it, the words go in deeper.

I see that I’ve underestimated her through the years. I’ve mistaken her silence for weakness, acquiescence. I see that she is what my father made her, as we all are, and yet, beneath the surface, she’s so much more. I also see that, in this perilous moment of her life, she’d like a little credit. I’ve always taken it for granted that my mother wanted to be taken for granted, that she wanted to blend into the woodwork. But what she wants right now is to be noticed, appreciated. She wants me to know that she’s stronger than I suspected. She’s getting her treatments, not complaining, and if she takes pride in this, if she wants me to be proud, she also wants me to know I’m made of the same stuff. She survived my father, as did I. She’ll survive this, and I will too.

I don’t realize until later that this is the same restaurant where it all unraveled with Brooke. Just like tennis. The same court on which you suffer your bloodiest defeat can become the scene of your sweetest triumph.

I actually feel my pulse decrease. I don’t feel bad. I try to feel bad, but I can’t. I wonder if I’m growing accustomed to losing to Pete in big matches, or simply growing content with my career and life. Whatever the case, I put my hand on Pete’s shoulder and wish him well, and though it doesn’t feel like goodbye, it feels like a rehearsal for a goodbye that can’t be far off.

It’s easier to be free and loose, to be yourself, after laughing with the ones you love. The right attachments.

I’m obsessed with leaving a record, in part because I’ve developed a gnawing fear that I won’t be around long enough for Jaden to know me.

Face it at its worst and realize it’s not so bad. That will be your chance for peace. I wanted to quit and leave and go home and see you. It’s hard to stay and play, it’s easy to go home and be with you. That’s why I’m staying.

Maybe they’re confused because I don’t tell them the full story, don’t explain my full motivation. I can’t, since I’m only slowly becoming aware of it myself. I play and keep playing because I choose to play. Even if it’s not your ideal life, you can always choose it. No matter what your life is, choosing it changes everything.

I think older people make this mistake all the time with younger people, treating them as finished products when in fact they’re in process. It’s like judging a match before it’s over, and I’ve come from behind too often, and had too many opponents come roaring back against me, to think that’s a good idea.

We ask one thing of every teacher: to believe that every student can learn. It sounds like a painfully obvious concept, self-evident, but nowadays it’s not.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I never knew this was an acceptable point of view. Now I steer by it. Now it’s my North Star. And that’s what I’ll tell the students. Life is a tennis match between polar opposites. Winning and losing, love and hate, open and closed. It helps to recognize that painful fact early. Then recognize the polar opposites within yourself, and if you can’t embrace them, or reconcile them, at least accept them and move on. The only thing you cannot do is ignore them.