Chapter 7
seven
It’s while I’m at the net, a passing shot hit by Daryna Ostapchuk whizzing by me, that I realize I’m going to lose this match. The ball is too far from my racket, perfectly down the line, and she’s a point away from beating me in a second-set tiebreak.
A straight set loss in the Miami Open quarterfinals. Like last year and the year before and the year before. Because no matter how much work I put into this, it doesn’t matter.
I toss a peeved glance to my hauntingly empty box, where Pen bites a nail anxiously and Karolína stands, clapping. The furrow in her brow is unmistakable: she also believes I’m going to lose this.
Get your shit together, I tell myself. Why are you playing so poorly? Pull yourself out of this one. It’s not that hard to hit a ball back onto the court until she messes up. So do it.
As if this all hasn’t been embarrassing enough, when I get to the baseline, serving to stay in the tiebreak, I hit a toss that’s too far forward, and my first serve shoots into the net.
I take a breath, bounce the ball once, twice, three times.
The third bounces funny, so I start again.
One, two, three, four. Look at the service box, where Daryna moves side to side, preparing to smash my slower second serve down the line for a spot in the semifinals.
This time, my toss is perfect, but I’m too early, too eager to prove myself, and the ball sails outside the line of the service box.
I double faulted my way out of the match. A loss to someone I’ve beaten easily every time I’ve played her.
“Game, set, and match, Ostapchuk. Two sets to love, 6–2, 7–6,” the chair umpire says into the microphone, Daryna’s cry of excitement still reverberating between my ears.
Frustrated tears blur my vision as I shake her hand at the net, then the umpire’s. I pack my rackets and bottles into my bag, throw it over my shoulder, and wave to the crowd as I disappear into the tunnel.
It’s not until I’m alone in the locker room that I allow the floodgates to open.
Sahar’s Bad Berlin Bagels
Maya
It was a great match, Nic! Still plenty of season left.
Harper
Yes! Clay court is coming, and it’s all yours!
Delilah
I am so ready for the beast you’re about to become on clay
Austin
And if it helps, this gives you a few extra days to relax before Charleston
Sahar
Dude, get OUT of here
Sahar removed Austin from the chat.
A few hours later, long after Karolína and Pen leave for our hotel, long after matches are done being played, I stand from a bench in the locker room.
Normally, if I wanted to burn off this anger, I’d have to sneak past Karolína and Nora, who know that I tend to punish myself most after a tough loss.
But, I suppose, lying on a bench like a zombie for hours, other women on the tour filtering in and out, was enough for the former to believe I could do myself no harm.
There’s a cracking in my chest that feels more like defeat and less like the anger I’m so used to.
I much prefer the anger to this, the edges of something far darker creeping in, seeping into the little crack, filling it till it shudders wider and wider and I’m exhausted and depressed and I just need to…
I don’t know what I need. But the only thing that has kept the darkness at bay is putting my head down and getting back to my training.
If I stop lying here and contemplating, if I spend all that time in the gym or on the court instead of wasting my time wallowing, maybe I’ll see a sliver of progress somewhere. Anywhere.
Maybe I’ll find something to latch on to so I stop hating the one thing I’ve ever loved doing.
Finding my way back to the gym, where only three people are cooling down after their matches, I pull out my boxing gloves and set myself in front of the lone punching bag in the far corner.
Punch punch punch punch punch punch. Until I’m breathing hard and the weight behind my eyes travels to the rest of my body, heavy with exhaustion from the weeks, months, years of training I’ve put it through.
Punch punch punch punch punch punch. Until all the mistakes I made today don’t flash behind my eyes with each blink.
Punch punch punch punch punch punch. Until I hear the cheering of a crowd that loved me, rooting for me as I hoisted trophies that proved I was on the right path.
Punch punch punch punch punch punch. Until I hear the pride in my mother’s voice after a junior French Open win, one of the rare times she’s shown any emotion toward me.
The child she didn’t want to have, the obligation that ended her career early.
The one that, if she and my father hadn’t been swimming in money, would have caused far more problems.
Punch punch punch punch punch punch. Until I forget what it was like to be looked down upon by my peers growing up in Athens.
Until I forget how the few social skills I developed in school disappeared while being homeschooled in New York, the rest of my free time spent on a court because it was the one place I felt connected to any member of my family in a new country I’d never wanted to move to.
Because it was the place I felt powerful and in control.
Punch punch punch punch punch punch. Until I stop thinking about the fact that I have never, not for a second of my life, felt like a priority to anyone.
A moment before I begin another set of (rather weak) punches, the bag shifts out of the way.
I’m so consumed, I don’t notice Aleksandr, and when I overshoot, I topple into his arms, struggling to catch my breath.
I can’t pinpoint what happened, but I wasn’t paying enough attention to the sensations in my body, and now I can’t move.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Come on. Let’s get you on the ground.
” Gently, he sets me against the wall, out of view of the others in the gym.
The black foam tiles beneath the punching bag stick to my legs, and my vision swims, so much so, I have to close my eyes and rest my head against the wall, still taking in huge lungfuls of air.
When I open my eyes again, Aleks is squatting beside me, a worried furrow in his brow.
He points to my gloves, which are still wrapped tightly around my hands, and I give him a feeble nod.
He rips the strap of Velcro off the right one, pulling it off my hand hesitantly, then does the same for the left one.
A water bottle appeared beside me at some point.
He cracks it open and hands it to me, and I gulp it greedily.
Finally, my breathing slows, and he glances at me meaningfully, just this side of chiding. “Nic, what are you doing? You’re going to kill yourself.” There’s a hitch in his breath.
“I’m fine.” I clamp my teeth together, glaring at the wall, refusing to meet his eyes.
“No, you’re not. You’re overtraining, as you have been for months. You just played a match after a long few weeks. What you need is to stretch, roll out, and sleep.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, Aleksandr. I’ll take that into consideration.”
“I’m not messing around. You have to stop this, Nic, or you won’t have anything left in the tank and that’ll be it. The end. The credits rolling on a promising career, thrown away because you didn’t know when to quit.”
My head whips around, eyes blazing into his. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s dropped to his knees in favor of squatting, his light-brown-almost-blond hair tousled, brows nearly touching over narrowed eyes. There’s no hint of his usual smile, his jaw clenched.
“Screw you. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like a fucking failure every time you walk off court.
You don’t know what it’s like to labor under the load of everyone’s expectations, to come up empty-handed time and time again until you’re nothing more than a disappointment.
You don’t know what it’s like to be so successful so young, only to lose your edge and find yourself at square one with people younger than you beating you when it should be your turn.
” I can’t help the tear that escapes my eye at the words, embracing the anger it creates in me that he’s witnessing this.
I swipe it away. “You don’t understand anything about my situation. ”
He’s quiet for a few moments, watching me. It makes me angrier, that he’s here, acting like he has any right to see me this way when his career was filled with so much success.
“Of course I understand. It’s why I quit.”
A request that he leave dies in my throat. I blink away the rest of the hot, angry tears. Blink a few more times until his lips curve into a kind smile.
Quietly, he adds, “Why do you think I’ve been watching you, waiting for you to show up at the gym and work yourself into the ground after every loss? Because I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve been just like you, and it almost killed me, no matter what it looked like on the outside.”
“But you…you won so many titles. So many majors. Everyone loves you.”
“It comes and goes. I’m sure you’ve realized that.
They love you when you’re winning, hate you when you’re not.
And while, yes, I eventually got to the point where I was winning, I was miserable.
I got everything I wanted, and it still wasn’t enough.
” He takes a seat in front of me, hands hovering around my ankles before they drop into his lap. “When does it end, Nic?”
“What do you mean?”
“When does it all end? When you win a 500 tournament? ’Cause you’ve done that multiple times.
So does it end when you win a 1000? A major?
Does it end when you win all of them? Does it end when you get to be world number one?
When does it end? When do you stop pushing yourself so hard that you collapse? When?”
I have no answer for him because I don’t know. I want to win a major, be a point of pride for my parents, and be lauded as a great by the public, but will I stop then?
No. I won’t stop until I’ve put everything I have into this sport.
It’s all I have. It’s all I am.