Chapter 2
two
Hours later, after a cooldown stretch and shower, I prepare my socially challenged brain for a gory presser, wherein I will be asked a multitude of painful questions.
Half of these journalists hope to elicit as much drama as they can, pressing on purpling bruises with the expectation that they’ll get something salacious from it.
Karolína, Nora, and Pen stride with me down the hall toward the press room.
Foreboding settles in my veins as we move past Anya’s team, where they wait for her post-match press release.
Pen shifts behind me before we pass Anya’s parents—who speak to her quietly in Russian, brows furrowed—and her brother Aleksandr, who’s been working as one of her strength and conditioning coaches for over a year.
He steps between her and her parents, arm brushing mine in the process.
Aleksandr’s unwavering blue eyes meet and hold mine for a second longer than they should before I look away, my arm white-hot.
I loathe him.
“Sorry,” he murmurs. Refusing to meet his eyes again, I shake my head once. I imagine he’s apologizing for being in my way, but there’s something in the word that feels deeper. Not that I trust my ability to parse his or anyone else’s tone.
When there’s a safe distance between us and Anya’s camp, Pen speaks softly. “Okay, Nic. If there’s anything you don’t want to answer, look at me. They’re not going to let you get away without some rough ones, but anything that hits too close to home, I’ll set them straight, alright?”
“I can handle them,” I grumble, fixing the various gold hoops along my ears.
“We know you can. That’s exactly why you can’t be the one to say anything, because it never goes well when you do.”
So I don’t mince words. Sue me.
“Fine.”
A staff member opens the door, and I step in, pasting on a wobbly smile—or my best imitation of one—as flashes go off.
Pen and Delilah—my closest friend and former doubles partner—both, on separate occasions, told me my PR-friendly smile needs work.
I believe the former’s exact words were “twitching the corners of your lips isn’t enough to make people believe you like them. ”
The table in front of me is long, with one lone microphone, and I take my seat as I have many times, tossing my thick, wet, chestnut-brown hair into a bun to get it off my neck.
Four rows, each with ten chairs, sit before me, full of photographers and reporters chomping at the bit to rip me limb from limb.
I rub a finger over my mati pendant on one of my necklaces, sure I’ll need its protection now more than ever. The ridges of the blue eye kiss my skin comfortingly.
A woman with short black hair from tournament staff takes a seat at the table, out of view of the cameras, smiling at me kindly before turning to the room. “Good evening. Welcome to the press conference for Nicola Vassilakis. Please raise your hand if you would like to ask a question.”
Hands shoot up all over the room, and the woman points. “Federica.”
I scan faces until someone calls for my attention.
“Nicola?” I bite back a grimace at their use of my full name and the image of an empty home and a sharp not-so-motherly tone it produces, my gaze landing on the woman in a deep blue pantsuit.
She’s smiling, which I take as a good sign.
“Hi. Obviously, this isn’t the outcome you wanted, but looking back at your tennis the last couple of weeks, how proud of yourself are you for reaching this final for the first time? ”
Using the training Pen has drilled into my skull, I reply, “I’m thankful I got this far.
” Pen’s lips twisting to the side tells me I need to say more.
“It’s always hard to make it to the final stage and lose.
There’s a lot of disappointment, but yeah, I played great tennis, and I’m happy I made it to the final.
” I’m hesitant to use the word proud, not sure I’ve earned it after today.
The press staffer points at another woman with her hand raised.
“After getting to witness that level of tennis today, I can safely say we’re all glad you made it to the final,” the journalist chimes in, smoothing stray strands of her blonde hair behind her ear.
She smiles sympathetically. “Are there things you think you could have done differently? Things you did throughout the tournament to get you here that fell off near the end?”
Digging the heels of my shoes into the stage, I stare her down.
“Like what?” The woman falters, glancing around, but at the shake of Pen’s head, I exhale.
“There are always things you go back to that you wish you’d done differently.
What if I’d served out wide a few more times during the second-set tiebreak?
Would she have caught on or not? What if I’d deviated a bit more from cross-court shots, went to the net more?
So yeah, there will always be things like that. ”
Things that won’t allow me to sleep tonight, or for the next week. Reminders that after years of hard work, after years of chasing the love heaped upon me when I won two junior majors, I’m still right where I started when I aged up.
Struggling to get a 1000 title, let alone a major.
Papers flutter as they search for the next barbed question.
A man seated in the third row stands and, like a bloodhound sniffing out my unhealed wounds, says, “Nicola, you won two junior slams. After all that success, people expected you’d carry on your mother’s legacy.
Carmen Aguirre spent months as the world number one, and won fifteen singles titles, including three majors. ”
I clench my teeth so tight, I’ll be surprised if they’re not reduced to nubs. As if I need my mother’s accolades told to me. Like I haven’t spent years agonizing over the fact that not only have I not lived up to people’s expectations, I’ve failed to live up to my mother’s name.
“Despite the injuries and losses you’ve suffered thus far, do you think you’re capable of getting to that level eventually?”
Clearing my throat, I search the room, as if the right words will appear. All I’ve ever wanted my entire life is to win majors, to be heralded as one of the greats, to have the adoration of millions.
But nothing has gone according to plan. Pen glares at the back of the reporter’s head, ready to address him, but I can handle this.
I can only imagine what people are saying about me on social media: some variation of anybody who ever believed Nicola Vassilakis was Grand Slam champion material, read ’em and weep or this has to be one of the biggest chokes in WTA Indian Wells history since those are consistent in my messages and tags, so much so that Pen now handles my socials.
The last thing I need is to look like I can’t take care of myself during a press conference and add fuel to their fires.
I want to scream. Am I capable of reaching my mother’s level?
I’ve been working my ass off for years with little to show for it.
The number of times I’ve considered quitting is certainly not zero, especially after these painful losses this year, but I’m clinging to the sport I used to love and the joy that once came with winning.
“There were a lot of expectations about what I’d accomplish by a certain age.
Have I done that yet? No. But I’ve made it into the same number of big finals this year as I have in the rest of my career combined.
I’m finally in the top ten.” With more conviction than I feel, I finish, “So yes, I am capable, and I’d like to believe this season so far is proof I’m knocking on that door. ”
Murmurs float around the room, hopefully impressed.
Pen has tried to instill in me the need to make jokes, get these people laughing with me, but I’ve never been able to do that.
I was, I think, born without much of a sense of humor, and that makes me criminally unfunny to most. Rarely do I know what to say during any social or public interaction, and if I sound like I do, it’s because I’ve been coached.
It’s frustrating being so fundamentally different from people that I need all these pointers.
Since I was young, I’ve recognized that something is wrong with me, that I never say the right thing or act the right way.
That I lash out when I’m uncomfortable. That my silences make people uncomfortable.
“It’s off-putting,” my nanny Daphne once told my mother the day she and my father returned from a month away, right in front of five-year-old me.
If only I were naturally comfortable with people like Delilah, the tour’s sweetheart, or Anya, who has tennis lovers eating out of the palm of her hand despite how juvenile and bratty she often acts.
If only I didn’t care what people thought of me.
Another man stands. “Nicola, you’ve got a healthy rivalry with Anya. You’ve played her eight times now and won once, over a year ago. You had the opportunity today after winning that first set. What went wrong? And do you think Anya is an opponent you can’t crack?”
It’s a question I should have expected, and yet it irks me. Nothing about our rivalry is healthy. Since she was seventeen, she’s been the definition of a prodigy, winning majors and tournaments. We may both be legacies, but Anya is the one who’s been able to find success in that legacy.
While I never particularly liked her or the way she forces herself into her opponents’ heads, when I moved into the top fifty and we began meeting more often, she became insufferable in a way I could no longer ignore.
Training at her parents’ facility, while beneficial to my rise, has only served to make things between us more intense.
I wonder if this short, pale man feels my eyes stabbing holes in him like a voodoo doll.
Pen points at her smile urgently, so I force the corners of my mouth to twist up.
“Anya is a great player. She’s tough to beat, and today just wasn’t the day for me to do it.
She played better.” Swallowing over the bitterness of those words, I finish, “There are a lot of young girls coming in from the juniors who are bright and full of potential. I’m going to continue putting in the work so I can keep pace with them. ”
After answering how I’ll handle another potential meeting with Anya this season (prepare until my body breaks down), what it’s like being a perfectionist (at this level, who isn’t?) in a sport where you can lose half the points even when you win, and what I’m going to do to celebrate getting into this final (go to the gym to get stronger, something the room thinks is a joke), Pen checks that there are no more questions and I thank them all before heading out.
It’s getting late, but I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight. At least we’re flying home to Orlando tomorrow ahead of the Miami Open, where I’ll have a couple of days to unwind in my own apartment for the first time in two and a half months.
I just need to get through tonight.
Despite the itchy feeling it produces, I hug Karolína and Pen.
The former gives me a look and a muttered but firm “rest up, then” when I refuse their offer of dinner before we part for the evening.
I grab my tennis bag, stomping my way to the players’ gym, whipping out my phone on the way, and watching the messages from my closest friends roll in.
Sahar’s Bad Berlin Bagels
Maya
No matter the outcome, you are an absolute powerhouse, Nic! You played so well!!
Harper
I’ve never been so proud of you!
Sahar
No seriously. You were so hot out there. Next time Anya is toast
Separately, Delilah texted.
Delilah
Please go easy on yourself tonight
You played so incredibly. This one match doesn’t define your season. It’s still the year of Nic!
I love you. Try to get some sleep and can’t wait to see you and watch you kick ass in Miami <3
The knot in my chest eases a fraction but not enough to go back to my dark and lonely hotel room. Dumping my phone and bag to the side, I shove earbuds in, yank out my resistance bands, and get to work.