by Lola Keeley
“In the next round, you have what many would call a winnable match against Sasha. You’re certainly in with a chance.”
“Well, I don’t take anything for granted. She’s been a great player for a long time, so I’ll have to be at my best.” Tactful, respectful. Nice.
Mira barged in with her microphone then. “Assuming you do progress, you get what many will call the toughest path through the tournament. Elin Larsson has been the brick wall for so many young players, the one obstacle they just cannot get past. Do you have a strategy in mind?”
“Well, I have to qualify to play her first,” Toni said with a little laugh. “But bring it on, I say. If you don’t want to test yourself against the best in the world, why play at all, you know? This is a huge tournament, and she’s the goddess of tennis, so… But I need to win my next match and then I’ll worry about Elin.”
Alice threw a cushion at me for the goddess comment. Fair. It also gave me something to hide my blushes behind. I switched the television off, remembering I had planned to go out and be in the world. “You want to come gallery hopping?”
All I got from Alice was a groan.
“Fine, I’ll go alone.”
“You should. Being a goddess and all.”
Okay, so I was never living that one down. Good to know, and somehow completely worth it. I grabbed my bag and some sunglasses, eager to be out on the streets of New York.
CHAPTER TEN
I changed up the habit of the past few years and set my coaching team, under my mother’s watchful eye, into doing some opposition research on one Antonia Cortes Ruiz.
“Why this girl?” my mother asked when I made the offhand request. “She got lucky with Keiko, and playing another nobody won’t give her much of a warmup in the second round. You don’t have to worry about anyone until the quarter-finals at the soonest.”
“Mamma, trust me. It’s just a hunch, a gut feeling.”
“Fine, fine. I’m just glad you’re taking something seriously this time around.”
Parisa came back from booking my next car to the stadium for that afternoon. I didn’t trust the traffic and liked to arrive plenty early for my matches.
“I did some digging on this Toni, personal stuff. Do you want that too?”
I froze for a second. I really didn’t want this to turn into a whole situation. It felt like an unfair advantage somehow. Besides, if I was going to snoop around the woman before getting to know her better, I should really have done it by myself and stalked her social media like everyone else had to.
But hey, I had a match to prepare for and a ton of extra physio to be ready for it.
“I guess. It might help me get into her head a bit quicker.”
“Um… Sure?” Parisa shot me a curious look once my mother wandered off to get everyone else working. “Elin, is this what I think it is?”
“Please don’t think anything about it,” I asked. “Just spill and see if there’s anything useful.”
“Okay, so she’s been out for almost two years since she blew her back out at a Prem tournament somewhere in the Far East, I haven’t checked which one yet. I want to say Shenzen? Funny though, it was actually a doubles match and she got hurt colliding with her partner. She didn’t even play doubles before that season. Initial gossip was that she was out for good, right away.”
Shit. That had to be a crushing blow for anyone in this sport. I knew there couldn’t be a good explanation as such, but I’d been hoping for a slow recovery that just got delayed along the way.
“If we can find out more about how she hurt her back,” I said, feeling pretty ashamed for bringing it up. “And how it’s changed her game since she came back? Apparently I beat her in Paris before all that, but I don’t remember the match at all. Vague flashes, but it’s all just a mess of rallies apart from the finals.”
Parisa added to her notes.
“Not married, no kids. I checked since that’s usually the reason for an absence of more than six months. I think she had some funding issues when she first came back too, but she’s more than breaking even again.” Parisa was good, I had to admit it. “Current gossip is that she’s sleeping with her coach, you remember Xavi? Him.”
“But no confirmed couple sightings?”
That got me a knowing grin. “Nope. There’s hope, then. You want me to come to the practice session with you? We have a bit of press after, previewing tomorrow’s match.”
“Oh, that, yeah,” I had skipped ahead to the prospect of Toni so quickly I forgot I had another player to overcome, this time one of the lowest seeds from Poland. I tried to get to know my peers as far as possible, but the peppy young blondes were the hardest to keep track of. I suspect plenty of players felt the same about me when I was coming up. “Sure, keep me company if you don’t mind.”
“Alice not coming?”
“She says she won’t be caught dead in Queens unless I make the final. And that when I do, she’s bringing her own homemade signs. We’d better tip off Mother or there might be an international incident.”
“Oh, let her have her fun,” Parisa suggested. “It might be nice to go viral because your sister had some fun with a placard.”
“Just remember you said that.”
My second-round match went almost perfectly. My hip decided to let me play as though it had never been a problem. Then all I needed was for Toni to do her part against Sasha and meet me in the third round.
Good luck!
I sent the text a good hour before her match started, hoping she’d have a chance to see it before phones were tucked away. I wished we had some cuter way of saying it, like actors and breaking a leg. Definitely not one to try and make a thing of in professional sports.
Be careful what you wish for
Her reply might have sounded like a mild threat from anyone else, but it just made me smile. Of course she would be nervous at the prospect of playing me, only the cockiest player wouldn’t these days.
I watched Toni’s match through fresh eyes, with an intensity I hadn’t had since my teens. Back then, I’d been trying to learn every trick and skill from Mira and the other greats. Now I was watching like an unofficial coach, cheering Toni on from afar. I held my breath when it looked like she wouldn’t make it to the ball, then punched the air when she dived to make the backhand, winning the set in the process.
During the end changes, and the inescapable adverts on American television, I looked at the e-mail Parisa had sent with a bunch of relevant links. Thorough to a fault, that woman. A few were generic match reports, the kind of thing I wouldn’t read about myself. Dry recounting of key shots and boring stats, almost never worth the time.
A few were interviews, though, and I found myself skipping straight to those. Sports media, never the most incisive, hadn’t asked any deep questions. Generic enquiries about where young Antonia had grown up, when she’d realised she loved tennis. The first one or two had one-sentence answers, short and snappy. I recognised that from my own. I’d been so terrified I’d say something wrong that I’d tried not to say anything at all.
But then the profiles got more in depth, and I found myself missing entire points to keep reading. Toni revealed a little more with each thoughtful question, and I found out how her parents had separated early, pulling her back and forth for years between Guadalajara and Malága.
Six years younger than me. Hardly insurmountable, but it was a little disheartening to have it confirmed. As age gaps went, it was hardly scandalous. No indication, though, anywhere, that she had any interest in women. Just those scalding looks, that blast of her full attention when it turned on me. Which could just have been good manners, after all. Maybe Toni was just kind of intense.
We wore clothes from different suppliers; her racquet brand was one of the newer ones I didn’t entirely trust yet. Where I favoured the towel-material of sweatbands, always
matching the accent colour of my outfit, Toni opted for a simple cotton bandanna twisted and tied around her head. The bands at her wrists never matched, to the point where it had to be intentional.
All that information, significant and not, just left me wanting more. Hadn’t I asked these very questions? Why wasn’t I satisfied to find out the answers? And then I realised: Reading about it second-hand wasn’t half as interesting as potentially hearing those stories and details from Toni herself. I smiled at the thought. Would we get much chance to chat before the match if she made it through?
And just like that, her match came to an abrupt end. Her second-round opponent, Sasha, had been forced to retire with an injury. Just as I had in Cincinnati. The trouble with the grand slams was that the money just for showing up was too good to miss out on, so players forced themselves back before they were fit. Sasha had been struggling and Toni had taken the first set anyway, but the game was now handed to her in a forfeit.
She looked frustrated at winning that way. Not that I could blame her. Winning by forfeit never felt much like winning to me, either.
The pundits were waiting for her, especially since Sasha had gone straight off for treatment. Mira looked quite excited for once.
“So Antonia, you’ve made it through to face Elin Larsson in the third round as many predicted. Think you’ve got another giant-killing in you?”
Toni smiled and shrugged. “I can only try.”
“Obviously Elin has a great rivalry with Celeste Rutherford and is fresh from winning Wimbledon. Still, there are rumours that she’s playing through injury. Is this the best chance anyone has against her in a long while?”
I tried to tell myself Mira didn’t sound too gleeful at the prospect. I did a quick set of side stretches recommended by the physios, almost out of spite.
The moment Toni escaped the clutches of television, she sent me a text.
Game on?
I smiled. She had confidence enough, I’d give her that.
I look forward to kicking your ass. Respectfully, of course.
Which only left me thinking about her ass. Damn it, brain. I didn’t have to wait long for a distraction this time. Her texting speed had picked up. Haven’t you heard? I kill giants this year.
I just wasn’t loving the word ‘giant’ being thrown around so liberally. It made me feel huge and clumsy somehow, and not in the least attractive. What happened to goddess? I think I preferred that title.
My joy at quicker responses had been premature. The screen kept showing endless runs of those three little dots, but it took almost three whole minutes for those to give way to words.
Oh God you saw that? I never know what to say in these things. If anyone gets to be the goddess of tennis though, it’s you.
Time to let her wait a bit. Too much instant replying might make me look a bit too interested. I had a gym session to get to. Running and stretching, nothing too fun.
Besides, I would see her tomorrow for our match, thanks to the relentless format of these tournaments. Better to play it cool.
I hadn’t been nervous about a match in over a decade. Not in any noticeable, physical way. Those first few years I was a nervous wreck about everyone I played, either because they should crush me or then because I was the bright new thing that everyone wanted to tear down from her pedestal.
And okay, I still don’t like talking about it, but anxiety attacks right before I needed to be in my best physical condition and mental sharpness? Not that helpful. I spoke to the most discreet therapists and tried what they prescribed, but the pills often left me foggy and lethargic. Maybe in another job, another life, I would have given them more time. Instead, I had to look around for alternatives, all the while terrified that someone would find out and splash my private life all over the news.
I’d learned, with my mother’s constant coaching, to take that shaky adrenaline and use it channelled into strength and speed. If nerves made my body go all fight or flight, I could use flight to get my ass around the court that little bit quicker. A fraction of a second and a handful of millimetres could make all the difference on a vital point, and so I’d buried those human reactions deep beneath the surface to charge my reflexes and my motion.
Yet there I was, about to walk on court at the Arthur Ashe stadium. The biggest audience for any single tennis court in the world, I had played it countless times and had my share of big wins there. The friendly, raucous crowd were a delight to have on your side, and they treated the returning Open winners as their handpicked champions. If you won in New York, they’d always welcome you back.
Toni came bounding through the door from her private dressing room, another perk of playing on the big courts. She looked thrilled, but there was just the tiniest bit of tension at the edge of that broad smile.
“Ladies,” the head usher greeted us, looking as sharp as ever in his tournament suit.
“Mohammed.” I reached out to shake his hand. “It’s nice to be back.”
“I heard they had you on court in the Louis Armstrong for your first two,” he said, as though it’s some insider secret and not a matter of public record that also happened to be broadcast all over the world. He was clearly taking my turn on the second-largest court as a personal insult and not a quirk of scheduling.
“Well, we don’t want to wear out the fresh paint too early, do we? You’ve met Toni before?” I gestured to her, not wanting to look like a snob by excluding her from our catch-up.
“Miss Cortes Ruiz.” Mohammed bowed slightly before offering his hand, and she fumbled her racquet from one side of her body to the other in order to meet it with her own. “A pleasure. You were quite something in the first round.”
“Thank you,” she replied, shaking his hand with enthusiasm. Poor Mohammed looked a little startled.
I thought maybe I should distract them before his shoulder got dislocated. “Good crowd today?”
“Not bad for the end of the first week. There are some VIPs, of course. We’ll introduce you around after the match.”
The PA system from outside boomed into life, though we were insulated from the worst of it.
“Looks like they’re playing our song,” I said to Toni, whose smile wavered for the first time since she’d arrived.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Loser buys the first drink after?”
“You know how I like my martini.”
We followed Mohammed down the corridor and out onto the court. Not quite the winding maze of Wimbledon, just gladiators thrown directly to the lions.
Hard courts made for fast, sometimes brutal, matches. We walked with slightly squeaking soles around the green section of the floor around the dark-blue court, taking our places either side of the umpire up on her elevated seat. I hadn’t checked her name, but I remembered her face. The top-level umpires travelled with the tour, and she was relatively new. She’d told me off in Melbourne for smacking my racquet off the ground after a double fault, deducting a point for my temper.
Okay, maybe I had deserved that one. She gave me a knowing look as we moved to start the warmup rallies.
Once I saw Toni across the net from me, I started to remember our previous match in Paris. She’d come right after me, like we were both juniors with nothing to lose and not much difference in our rankings. The way she started to hit even in this loose warmup suggested she’d be bringing the same big hits. Her two-handed backhand came at me like I’d talked about her mother, and it had taken a quick adjustment to be able to return it.
All too soon the match was underway, the crowd a little restless given the early afternoon start. Fridays were always strange mid-tournament. The second week usually provided the big drama. I wasn’t defending champion this year either: Celeste had kicked me out in the semis last year, on her way to winning the whole thing.
Toni won the toss and opted to serve first, which was common in playe
rs against me. They figured they’d have a chance to rack up the first game quickly, reduce the risk of me getting into my stride and leaving them with a zero for that set. I’d done that to more than a few players in my time, after all.
She looked good, with her cute little bandana, the same black and neon green as her shorts and tank top. Her dark hair was pulled up high in a ponytail, and on that front at least we matched. Thankfully, New York had gone for a bearable sort of grey day, far from the scorching heat of Australia in January. My navy-blue-and-gold dress felt good, felt almost like wearing nothing at all, which is really what you want in sportswear. The matching Lycra shorts underneath would be on display at moments I hadn’t even considered, but that sort of thinking always melted away as soon as the first serve came at me.
She started with an ace.
Fifteen-love, the umpire confirmed. I had to get my head in the game, and quickly. Toni’s smile was long gone, replaced by an expression of total concentration. Unfortunately for me, that was somehow even more attractive. I managed to stop staring long enough to return her serve the next time, but she took that point with a sneaky net shot I hadn’t seen coming.
Okay, losing the first game was hardly a deal-breaker. I took a deep breath, the nagging tightness in the depths of my chest flaring at me, a reminder that I didn’t always have this under control. I held my racquet loose and confident, bending forward in anticipation of what would come to my baseline next.
Toni tossed the ball in the air for her next serve, and from that moment she all but disappeared. Just a shape, just the blur moving behind the ball. All that mattered was beating that blur.
Game on.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Jesus!” Toni gasped as the locker room door closed behind us. The private dressing rooms were now the territory of whoever was playing on court after us. Our things had been thoughtfully relocated by Mohammed’s ever-competent staff. I moved straight for my locker, tucked in the corner away from all the others. Number 19. Some people said it must be lucky; I just liked a little consistency in a life where I was somewhere different every other week.