Carrie Soto Is Back

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The bulk of the commentators…they wanted a woman whose eyes would tear up with gratitude, as if she owed them her victory, as if she owed them everything she had. I don’t know if it had ever been within me to act like that, but by the age of twenty, it was long gone. And it cost me.

People act like you can never forget your own name, but if you’re not paying attention, you can veer so incredibly far away from everything you know about yourself to the point where you stop recognizing what they call you.

One of the great injustices of this rigged world we live in is that women are considered to be depleting with age and men are somehow deepening.

“You know what my heart is—no, my soul? It’s like an old mattress that’s been bounced on so many times that now, if you put your hand on it, it leaves a permanent imprint. That’s what my soul is now. Just a big old mattress showing every dent.”

And yet, no matter what type of woman you are, we all still have one thing in common: Once we are deemed too old, it doesn’t matter who we used to be.

The book I brought is an unauthorized biography of Daisy Jones and the Six. I’m only reading to see who slept with who, but I can’t focus.

Maybe it’s a lie that you have to keep doing what you have always done. That you have to be able to draw a straight line from how you acted yesterday to how you’ll act tomorrow. You don’t have to be consistent. You can change, I think. Just because you want to.

Jones: Never underestimate Carrie Soto. And to any other women out there, wondering if they are too old to play tennis, let the Battle Axe be all the evidence you need to get in the game.

We live in a world where exceptional women have to sit around waiting for mediocre men.

I look at her, understanding that as much as I know what it’s like to be a woman in this world, I have no idea what it’s like to be a Black woman.

“Falling in love is really quite simple,” she says. “You want to know the secret? It’s the same thing we are all doing about life every single day.” I look to her. “Forget there’s an ending.”

I laugh, and he pulls me back to him. “Te amo, cielo. Being your father is the best thing that has ever happened to me. My Achilles. Greatest of the Greeks.” “Dad…” I say. “No,” he says. “Just accept it. Let me feel it and say it. You’re the meaning of my life.”

And I wonder for a moment why I have spent all my time worried about losing things, when there is so much here.

Javier Soto was a great coach, a coach for the ages. And I think we’re seeing that in this tournament. I think we are seeing, in Bowe Huntley and Carrie Soto, what Javier Soto was best at. The “beautiful fundamentals,” as he would say.