Page 102 of Carrie Soto Is Back

Nicki nods. “I understand.”

“You don’t feel that way?” I ask.

Nicki shakes her head. “I’d wreck my best friend in cold blood on national television.”

—

The next morning, I’m awake at four. I can’t stand to lie here, turning from one side to the other, fluffing the pillow, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Paris.

How I fucked it all up.

Handed Nicki that record.

I get out of bed and go into the living room. Ali put the matches I requested on VHS tapes and sent them over. I shuffle through the box until I find the one I need.

Soto vs. Antonovich.

My chest tightens as I put the tape in the machine and press play.

It’s painful to watch. I hate how helpless I am to prevent what I know will happen onscreen. But it is my only way of ensuring that it does not happen again.

Right from the jump, I’m fast but I’m sloppy. My pace is so hurried, I’m not setting up my angles. I’m running for shots I know I can’t get.

I have to will myself not to turn off the television.

The second set, I’m just plainly making bad choices. Not disguising my shots well. Hitting a groundstroke right to her. Sending a slice way too short. I’m choking. Just choking out there.

All because I’m trying to prove to Antonovich that she’s not faster than me. When I can see it so clearly on the tape.

She is faster than me. That’s exactly what she is.

—

I head down to the courts hours earlier than I’d planned. There is no one there. I’ve got the place to myself. And so I start hitting against the ball machine.

Part of what I love about a grass surface is how it requires such quick thinking. Other players may be able to run faster from one side of the court to the other. They might even be able to hit the ball so it moves faster across the net. But what I have always been good at, the challenge I have always taken pleasure in rising to, is thinking on my feet on a tennis court.

You have to ask and answer a series of questions in rapid succession: Where is the ball going? What way will it bounce when it hits? How do I want to hit it back? And where do I need to be standing in order to do that?

When I was a child, my father focused on the fundamentals—the stances, the form.

Look at the ball, turn, swing.

Look, turn, swing.

Look, turn, swing.

Look, turn, swing.

With a serve, it was legs bent, arms up, toss, hit, follow through.

Legs, arms, toss, hit, follow.

Legs, arms, toss, hit, follow.

Legs, arms, toss, hit, follow.

Hour after hour, day after day, the same drills. Sometimes not even hitting an actual ball but just doing the motions, feeling the routine of it. My dad would even make me do it in front of a mirror, watching each movement in my body as I flowed through the form.

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