SLAMMIN'

by Marcus Cootsona

  And a complication courtesy of Willy.

  Willy and Zelda were growing close and Wally wondered where it would end, and what would happen with Sophie. After practice or matches, Wally and Rod Laver the Dog walked the Upper East Side or slept and Willy and Zelda did the Upper East Side and hardly slept. Sophie now aued and paired for Addie and Deuce and was at Cloud prepping them for school. She was part of the household. What was Willy going to do? Sophie was a distant hypotenuse in the romantic triangle, but she had to know. Did Willy not care? Did Sophie not care? And did Zelda not care? Were they just another blissful, swinging troika?

  His family felt completely fracted up.

  It wasn’t just Willy’s intricacies. Or even no Danielle. Wally missed his kids. Being gone for their last days of summer and first days of school really gurged. He felt guilty, and cut off, and uncomfortably like a self-absorbed Atherton work-too-much dad. Addie was trying out for the tennis team. Deuce was prestidiging. His students were migrating back. Why was he doing this? Was he really going to beat Federer, or Nadal or even, for instance, Dudi Sela? What a mistake.

  On the second day there, Wally wanted to leave New York. He was at the point of bailing, but checked in on his accounts and was forcibly reminded that he was here for the money to keep them in the Academy and the house. Even a first-round loss could help. It was worth nineteen grand. And that was something. Although just barely something in Menlo Park.

  He had waivered long enough that the matches started, and his old friend responsibility came back for an update. So did his angel, ready to open a can of power-of-the-mind on him. He got it. Self-pity was a luxury. And a distraction. The breakfast of dependents. He was an adult. He was responsible. There was only the mission.

  August 24, 2011. 1300 hours.

  The U.S. Open Qualifying was the hardest competition Wally had ever faced. This was the sixth-largest tournament in the world and though it was free to watch, the stakes were high.

  All his opponents were ATP pros with triple-digit rankings. Players you might have heard of it you really followed the sport; or were unemployed: or a blogger; or an ATP publicist; or an unemployed ATP publicist-turned-blogger. Or, a messy-haired fanatic in gamey sweats and old Barricades who knew who semi’d Rotterdam in ‘03.

  In the first round, Wally traded nukes with Teddy Tree, the guy who’d not only served it 163 at the Challenger in Eritrea, but also in Lansing. And he’d semi’d Rotterdam. He played big. But Wally played bigger. Than everyone. The match was fast, artless and brutal. And despite a 7 – 6, 6 – 7, 7 – 6 (19) scoreline, the whole thing took forty-one minutes. Or, about one Isner/Mahut changeover. Wally even returned a few serves.

  Willy was awed. Mostly by his own coaching. This was so Larry Stefanki.

  Anyone who’d watched felt one of a few kinds of awe too. A Wally Wilson match was an event. A very quick event. Wally played like he’d left a burner on at home. He finished quicker than a prom date. All power and zero finesse. And no one minded. Least of all the tournament brass. With the networks and the Slams massed against the profit-clogging hairball of four- and five-hour matches, Wally was Drano. When he played a match, it was DVR-skip-fast. He made Stephie Graf look like Bernhard Langer. He didn’t bounce the ball before serving. He didn’t miss first serves. He didn’t towel-off between points. He barely even drank since it made him pee and he didn’t sit down on changeovers because he stiffened up too much.

  He just Miroslav-Mecired it to the other end of the court, chatted up fans, petted his dog and waited the ninety seconds for his twenty year-old foe to stand up and get back to it. Wally’s lack of attitude was bracing, real and confrontational. The New York crowd loved it. And him. He was just like them. A regular citizen. An American.

  Who served it two-fifty.

  They’d definitely stay for his night matches.

  But he wasn’t there quite yet. First, he needed to adjust to the pro game. The big stage was truly bigger. The crowds made it epic. Platonic, even. This wasn’t just tennis, it was tennisness. The conceptual conjugation of environment, opponents and rulebook. All realized ideally. And intensely. Though the sport was the same, everything was different and bigger and better than Tennis as he knew it.

  For one thing, the court conditions were distractingly pristine. Wally was used to playing on private courts with their uneven drainage, roots and cracks, and rippled fissures where even the best surfaces were wavy and irregular underfoot. The courts at Flushing Meadows were flawless. Perfectly smooth and crack-free. It was like dancing on a Dallas dermal fill.

  And most California hardcourts were asphalt over concrete, with a fast, high bounce. Not here. The Open’s courts were DecoTurf, a synthetic hardcourt. Softer than asphalt, it doesn’t crack. It slows the ball down and gives a lower bounce and a stickier top layer than traditional hard surfaces. It felt different too. Wally stuck it with his finger. It actually gave a little. Like an old flan. Hard courts were hard. This stuff was colloidal. If Djokovic won here, he’d have to slice a piece to eat it.

  And then there was all the human help. Linespersons, ballpersons and an umpire person. You never had to pick up. You never had to call a line. You didn’t even have to keep score. You just hit your shots. And got scrutinized.

  Integrating these new variables and rhythms into the game flow took some acclimation. More than once Wally signaled for a ball that arrived from the east while he looked west. He felt like Wile E. Coyote. He was grateful for the lack of network coverage. He needed some more practice laps before the race.

  August 25. 1100 hours.

  His second round was Danny “Dribbles” Danner. Danny had career wins in San Jose and Zagreb and had earned his fourteen minutes record-booking forty let cord winners in one match in 2010. The net cord tinkler became his tactic. With his coach yelling at him from the court seventeen stands to “hit the net more” his shots went deep south. Against Wally’s neutron power, he netted almost every ball off the headband into the webbing. His coach later maintained that he’d actually said, “hit over the net more.” The misses were close. The match, not so much.

  August 26. 1500 hours.

  Round three and the last hurdle was Juan David Romero, a competent, timid thirty-one year-old Spanish baseliner with two ATP records – both in 2005, in Madrid, on clay against his Davis Cup teammate, practice partner and good friend, Juan Carlos Romero (no relation). Their match started as a standard clay court grip-and-grind. But it didn’t get very far. Juan David served, Juan Carlos returned, Juan David responded and off the Juan’s went. Sort of. This one point that began at four pm, lasted until dark and burned thirty-seven thousand defensive, top spun, high net-clearance groundstrokes and left only the core of the ball and one coach, Juan David Carlos Romero (no relation) who coached both players and declared the seven-hour point, “a triumph for tennis” when the tournament officials finally called it for an early dinner.

  With only one point played and no winner in sight, it was hard to see where the triumph was. The unprecedented match demanded flexibility and creativity by the tournament officials. A new ball was carefully fed into the “action” at estimated seven-game intervals. Food, water and sweatwipes were provided by an agile, adept and dedicated corps of ball persons, conscientiously downing edamame, goo shots and coffee. Doctors, masseuses and psychiatrists were also put on standby.

  The tennis press overlooked the hypnotic irresoluteness of the one-ball rally and praised the dos Juans for their tenaciousness. The two remained tenacious, leading to Juan David’s second record. Winner of the longest match ever recorded and not really concluded. Their first-round standoff lasted four days and carved a benchmark for pattern playing and refusal to hit a closing shot or take a chance. At the end of day four, the match was tied at two games apiece and resisted a coin flip decision when the one-Peseta coin stood on its edge and wouldn’t fall either way.

  King Juan Carlos David Feliz (no relation) royally broke the tie and decreed in favor of Juan David, si
nce his highness never liked his own brother Juan Carlos all that well anyway.

  Wally, lacking Spanish coaching and defensive tenacity, made decisions, closing shots and two-hundred-mph first serves and rolled over Juan David in twenty-four minutes.

  The Wally Wilson aura grew.

  So did Zelda’s. As the prime conduit for all things Wallyable, FeltandSeam.com went from being a fringe blog read by a few to a marginal blog read by a few more. If the momentum held, she might even get some ads. Besides ballistic blast serve and groundstroke video clips and commentary, Zelda provided daily details, dish and dispatches.

  Watching Wally Wilson’s game up close on the outer courts gives even seasoned observers and tennis insiders a singular feeling. When he serves a first, it not only clears the net by just a few inches, is not only louder and more resonant than other pros’ shots, but like the techno pulse of a dance club, you can feel his shot. He is tennis’ young Tiger Woods of a certain age. A marvel. A mutant. A sponsor’s dream. Old fans, young fans and those in the tennis advertisers preferred demographic with nice cars, mild paunches and discretionary income can sense it. He is once in a century. He is Mr. Sui Generis. Slamito ergo sum, my friends.

  Spectators who’d seen Wally’s serve on FeltandSeam.com or YouTube agreed. They packed the stands to see him up close and root for a new, old champion. Even grizzled and inured insiders thought that he represented either a stylistic sea change or the sad sinking of a twelve-century-old sport. Or maybe both. But they knew the game could take it. After all, tennis survived not only the petulance of the seventies and the boredom of the eighties, but also Marcelo Rios in the nineties. One teaching pro with the strength of a dissed Yeti couldn’t really undo all that history and forbearance. And anyway history could go yump. People watched him. And they fixated.

  They filmed Wally and wanted his autograph. They wanted to interview him and they wanted his serve. They wanted his dog and they wanted to date him. He was a rock star in a carbon fiber hat. And with his new body, women not only wanted to date him, they wanted to date him. He got flowers. He got tokens. He got presents. He got naked photos, naked videos, naked marriage proposals, naked grocery lists and hard-to-envision propositions. Naked. He was living Brett’s dream.

  And this was just a qualifier.

  The optimistic of the grizzled and inured waxed poetical in their way. They saw Wally as the sport’s Wilt Chamberlin, Carl Lewis or William “The Refrigerator” Perry. A transforming physical dude with an unstoppable freak game. Except that he was shorter, taller and lighter than the three of them respectively. And hadn’t slept with 25,000 women. But help was on the way for that too.

  Viagra offered Wally two hundred grand and samples for life. Wally turned them down and flinched just a little. Bad juju. Other age-appropriate companies hovered and proffered. Wally also said no to big tie-ups from the AARP, Flomax and Hair Club for Men.

  Nike proposed a head-to-toe clothing deal with no money, and Wally would’ve grabbed it in a Flushing Meadows minute. But Willy countered at five hundred grand and a three-year definite. Since the parties were some ways apart, they all agreed to talk again if Wally won his first round at the Open. Willy planned to up the ask then.

  Zelda had the exclusive, but there were also interviews from magazines and other, less comely bloggers. The hard questions poured out from an assortment of sources.

  “How do you hit so hard?”

  “Contact and swing speed.”

  “And so how do you hit the serve so hard?”

  “A lot of wrist.”

  “And how do you hit serve returns so hard?”

  “I step in.”

  Television pre-taped him. In case he went deep. CBS asked him about his cooking. Tennis Channel asked about his dog. And the Dog Channel asked him about his height. They all shot digitage of his serve.

  No one asked how, they just asked how fast? But it figured. No one asked Marat Safin about Ontology. At least not a second time. The vets knew the truth – you’re only your stokes. The smart press had learned how to contain things.

  But that was just the sideshow. When he smoked his last ace up the tee, he had done it. He was in. Wally Woodrow Wilson had played his way into the main draw of the U.S. Open. This was really something. He’d never been to the Open. At all.

  The plan had worked and his brother was ecstatic. Mission accomplished. Military precision overruled. Bravo Zulu. Sis Boom Bah. High-fives and Hooah’s all around. And a big auto-back pat for Willy. Time to savor a victory.

  Willy ran out onto court.

  “Congratulations, bro!” said Willy, hugging him, “We’re in the Open.”

  “Thanks,” said Wally, thoroughly gassed. “But William, we need to talk.”

  “Right here?”

  “Sometime soon. I’m worried.”

  “You’re worried? Well, me too. We have to pick your walk up music.”

  “Walk up music? Isn’t that baseball? Or MMA?”

  “It was. What do you think? Van Halen? Metallica? Dropkick Murphys?”

  “I don’t know,” said Wally. Then he got serious. “I’ve got a tick.”

  “Haven’t heard of them. But alternative, I like it.”

  “No, William, look at me. I have a tick.”

  Willy stared at his older brother. Wally’s left eyelid fluttered and convulsed. His right one drooped and then pulsed.

  “So you’re a little worn and frayed. It’s to be expected.”

  “It’s not that. You know how tired I get after matches?”

  “Of course you do. At your age, I’m just happy we don’t need a drool cup.”

  “Well, I’m getting a little more tired after each match, and now I have this tick.”

  “Okay, Monk, I’ll call a doctor and have you looked at. How’s that sound?”

  “It sounds like this condition has side effects.”

  “You’re not kidding. Endorsements. Women. Prize money. Women.”

  “Just call the doctor, okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine. And I’ll make you a Geritol smoothy.”

  “Glad you have my back.”

  “And your liver, don’t forget.”

  August 26. 1800 hours.

  On the eve of the Open, as Wally slept off his tick, and Willy was trying to navigate his relationship with Zelda, and as Sophie stayed home, intuiting every move he made, and Rod Laver the Dog was adjusting to city life and a settled stomach, and Addie and Deuce mourned the end of a disjointed, upsetting, but perfectly good summer, another woman entered their lives. Her name was Irene.

  She wasn’t a flapper, or a journalist or an actress. She was just bad news. Irene was the perfect storm. The perfect snafu. The perfect home-wrecker.

  Irene.

  She’d started life as a tropical storm on August 15, and by the twenty-sixth she’d matured into a hurricane that trashed the east coast. That was the part that everybody knew. The news had run trailers for a week. What no one could have predicted was the effect Irene would have on the 2011 U.S. Open.

  Tennis and water don’t mix well. At least at a major held yearly during hurricane season that hadn’t quite figured out the roof-over-the-stadium details. And, my friends, there was going to be biblical water. It was foretold and forecast. The Open would start late. And probably end later than usual. It was a time for big decisions.

  And, behold, one was made.

  And, behold also, it was pretty good.

  At first, word seeped out slowly to the few and then it gushed forth to the many in a torrent of tweets, texts and turbulent emails. The 2011 U.S. Open, the one that was due to finish on September 11th in New York City with an on-court presentation of the 9/11 flag was moving.

  To Indian Wells, California.

  Like a patient understudy, the West was finally getting its chance.

  The USTA board went at it like squabbling stepparents, but gave in for the good of its prodigious child. The decision was made. The tournament was going to move. And quickly.
It started in three days. For many fans, the announcement was wish fulfillment, decision porn and contradiction all wrapped in a bow. Tennis watchers throughout the world were stunned. Or rejoiced. Or just said, “hunh?” The grizzled and inured chortled and grinned. And made plane reservations.

  With Monday finals the last three years, the networks and advertisers had all not so secretly stumped the national tennis brass for a venue change. Even if it meant headin’ west. This year, the powers that paid wanted the United States’ personal Open to finish symbolically and profitably on Sunday, September 11th. Not the 12th. Not the 13th. The 11th. And Irene could just go blow.

  Fortunately for the interests with an interest, the USTA had recently punted away decades of East Coast status quo and then blinded by a pedigree, unknowingly elected a reformer to carry the ball. Not only a reformer, but a smoking pistol. A decision maker. A compulsive disruptor.

  The USTA’s new president, Cullen “Red” Numbers was a successful lawyer with the Manhattan firm of Billem, Whiteshoe and Dubbullit, and an innovator. Some would say a gambler. Ion Tiriac, himself a famously evasive entrepreneur was reputed to have called him, “sneaky,” adding, “But I won’t tell you how.”

  A former UCLA tennis All-American, who worked summers at the Vegas tables and then put himself through law school selling Bentleys in Beverly Hills, Red made the bold decision to get out for Dodge. But it wasn’t really very surprising. Red’s appointment had marked the beginning of what came to be known as The Reign Of Terroir. A jolt to the immovable Eastern establishment, courtesy of an irresistible force from the West.

  Red’s first official acts as president were to abolish the 10 & Under initiative (“silly foam balls and limp, dinky nets”), the Player Development Program (“what Grand Slam champions?”) and relocate the USTA national offices to Manhattan Beach, California (“better waves and warmer women”). Moving their crown jewel and organizational ATM machine to Indian Wells, California was pure Red, and locked up a nice sponsor commitment and cash catch from Solyndra, a company intent on throwing money in any and all directions as long as it lasted.