Page 112 of Summer After Summer

Seven matches to go.

Fred writes every day, always with the same offer of a walk, and I always decline. There’s more time between my matches, though, now—a day off between each one—so he knows that when I decline to rest it’s because I’m not ready to see him. He asks anyway, and each exchange lasts a little longer and reveals a little more of his past, what he’s been doing these last five years. He asks me questions too, about my life. My sisters, my father, Ash.

We don’t talk about romantic partners, and for me there’s nothing to talk about. I’ve had boyfriends, short-term things with tour players or trainers because that’s who you meet when you’re on tour eleven months of the year, but nothing serious. I continue to resist googling him. If he’s been squiring beautiful British heiresses or models around, I don’t want to know.

It’s a dance we’re doing, a game of musical chairs.

When the music stops, who knows where we’ll be sitting.

My first-round match at Wimbledon is against Slavenka, a Russian girl who’s been on the circuit as long as me, but with more success. In the early years, we were rivals. But then she surpassed me and moved into the top one hundred while I stayed on the challenger circuit, and it’s been years since I’ve played her. We play on one of the smaller courts, and her game is different from how I remember; she’s developed a slice backhand that can go deep or turn into a drop shot without notice, and in the first set I’m running all over the court, getting to balls I wouldn’t have even tried for last year.

When I win in two sets, I toss my racquet again, sensing that this is what the crowd wants as they stand and cheer. When it cracks as it lands, I pick it up and hand it to a kid on the sidelines, stopping to sign it first. This draws another cheer, and this time, for the first time, I do find Fred in the crowd. He’s standing in a row of seats halfway up the grandstand, center court, dressed in a dapper linen suit, and he’s clapping hard. I give a small curtsy—more cheers—do a quick interview, then walk off the court.

Six more to go, Fred writes half an hour later during my press conference.

No amount of media training truly prepares you for what they’re like. My name is shouted over and over, and the same questions get asked in English, French, Spanish, and languages I barely recognize.

I give the same answers, but when my phone buzzes, I check it, and the smile on my face says something, because now they want to know who’s texting me: Is the message from someone special in my life?

I blush and say no.

Ouch, comes Fred’s text a moment later.

I flip my phone over and get back to the task at hand, and it’s only later, when I’m slipping into a bath that will be followed by an hour of deep massage and stretching, that I realize he didn’t ask me for a walk today.

My next match is a tough one against an American girl who grew up at one of those tennis academies in Florida that trained the Williams sisters and Capriati. Her name is Jenn—a beautiful blonde with modeling contracts and a grunt on each shot, which is distracting. I lose the first set, and I’m down a break in the second, but then Jenn runs for a ball that’s just out of reach and twists her ankle. She’s not injured enough to quit, but she’s hobbling, not as quick to get to the ball, and I decide that it’s now or never.

I up the power on my serves and get more aggressive at the net, and I take the set. On the changeover, the crowd is clapping for me, yelling, “Go, Olivia!,” and I tap into their energy and make quick work of her in the third set.

Up goes the racquet again, and this time I really can’t believe it.

I’m in the third round! The miracle talk is truly starting now, the way it does in sports, full of stats and probabilities, and how unlikely it will be if I make it. The press conference is full of it, and when it’s over, I text Fred this time: Five to go! And he writes back a string of exclamation points, and I laugh.

Already, I’ll make more money in this tournament than I made all of last year, but it’s not about the money: it’s about finally feeling like I’m living up to my potential, like the sacrifices I’ve made—no life, no love, no time off—are worth it.

Matt is fielding calls from sponsors, and I’ve been invited to three tournaments in the next couple of months that I would’ve had to qualify for, including the Rogers Cup in Montreal and—oh my God—the US Open.

I’m going to the US Open. Not as a guest, but as a competitor. I sit there shaking in the apartment, happy tears falling, and I almost text Fred again and suggest a walk, but no, I can’t do that. I’m on a streak, and when you’re on a streak, you have to respect it. I have to follow my exact same trajectory. Same boring meal, same stretching routine, same warmup, same hitting partner on the day off in between matches. I even watch the same movie at night to fall asleep.

It’s like a magic spell. Any small deviation can break it.

And that’s the last thing I want to do.

But then, in my next match, something’s off. Part of it is the setting. They’ve put us on center court, and as I stood waiting to go out, I looked up at the extract from Rudyard Kipling’s “If,” and I felt the edge of panic. It says: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / And treat those two impostors just the same.” I don’t know what it means, but the words triumph and disaster are not the same to me.

I take that uncertainty onto the court and everything feels off from the warmup. I haven’t played this many matches in a row in a long time, and I’m tired. I’m playing against the ranking Canadian player, but she was born in England, and the crowd is more on her side than mine. It’s hot out. The kind of sun that feels like it’s burning your skin, no matter how much sunscreen you have on. I’ve never played well in the heat, and today is no exception. I drop the first set and try to fight back in the second. I hold my serve, and she holds hers, both of our grunts getting louder and now it’s six–six.

Normally, we’d settle this in a tiebreaker, but not at Wimbledon. We’ll keep playing until one of us wins this set. I play a sloppy game, and now she’s up seven games to my six, and it’s her turn to serve. It hasn’t been the strong point of her game, this set, and I’m confident that I can get the break back. But she starts to serve well, and to win the points I thought I would. We’re at thirty–thirty, and I nod to let her know I’m ready.

BOOM!

The hardest serve she’s hit all day flashes past me. I don’t even get my racquet on it. And now it’s match point.

I’m going to lose, I think. Shut up, I tell myself.

I walk slowly to the other side baseline, trying to get that word, lose, out of my head. I turn to face her. She’s sweating as much as I am, and she has all the pressure on her now to produce another serve like the last one, to win this match. The crowd is on its feet, and it’s so loud in here, the noise is distracting. The chair umpire calls for silence and then up goes the ball and BOOM!

Another bomb that almost sails past me, but I get my racquet on it this time. It lands short and I run to cut off her angle as she reaches my drop shot. She hits it right to me, and I volley it back, dropping low, trying to put spin on it. I do, but it spins toward her, and I can see the shot she’s going to make before she does—a forehand winner down the line. The ball passes me and there’s nothing I can do.

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