Open Quotes
"I OPEN MY EYES and don’t know where I am or who I am. Not all that unusual—I’ve spent half my life not knowing. Still, this feels different. This confusion is more frightening. More total."
"I’m a young man, relatively speaking. Thirty-six. But I wake as if ninety-six."
"I play tennis for a living, even though I hate tennis, hate it with a dark and secret passion, and always have."
"Hate brings me to my knees, love gets me on my feet."
"I was born with spondylolisthesis, meaning a bottom vertebra that parted from the other vertebrae, struck out on its own, rebelled."
"Your body is saying it doesn’t want to do this anymore."
"My body doesn’t want to retire—my body has already retired."
"Pressure is how you know everything’s working."
"Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself."
"Tennis is so damned lonely. Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players."
"It’s no accident, I think, that tennis uses the language of life."
"I can’t escape the feeling that I’m about to die."
"The finish line at the end of a career is no different from the finish line at the end of a match."
"I’ve spent much of my life seeking the one, fighting the other, and sometimes I’ve been stuck, suspended, bounced like a tennis ball between the two."
"No matter where you sit in the house, you see scattered evidence of his obsession."
"Geometry and mathematics are as close to perfection as human beings can get."
"He talks sometimes about the beauty of the game, its perfect balance of power and strategy."
"I lie awake at night, picturing her on the ceiling."
"I’m ready to hit balls for hours. If Rudy were standing behind me, I think I could beat that dragon."
"He’s forever conducting experiments on this or that piece of equipment."
"My father loves money, makes no apologies for loving it."
"I’d give anything to stay. For all the pain my father has caused me, the one constant has been his presence."
"Despite his imperfect life—or maybe because of it—my father craves perfection."
"If somebody can write down your routine on a piece of paper, it isn’t worth the piece of paper it’s written on."
"Only the strong survive, right? Well, we couldn’t afford weights in our neighborhood, so we made our own."
"I feel as if I’m playing left-handed, as if I’ve suffered a brain injury. Everything is slightly off."
"The ball doesn’t listen to me. The ball doesn’t do what I say."
"You’re asking me to put you through a workout here that leaves no room for where you are, how you’re feeling, what you need to focus on."
"I feel amateurish, and often want to leave, but Pat always stops me."
"If they’re not trashing me for losing on purpose, they’re ragging me for the way I win."
"If I’m playing my best, and I care, and I want it, and I’m still not the best in the world?"
"I promise myself I won’t lose to him the next time we meet."
"There's a difference between a plow horse and a racehorse. You don't treat them the same."
"You wouldn’t be happier at a party? With friends?"
"Enough said. I’ll never ask again. Merry Christmas, son."
"Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world."
"We are like blocks of stone … the blows of His chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect."
"What problem? You want to work with Gil? So hire Gil."
"Can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be, Gil."
"It’s not rocket science, he says. If I were you, with your skills, your talent, your return and footwork, I’d dominate."
"You always try to be perfect, he says, and you always fall short, and it fucks with your head."
"Quit going for the knockout, he says. Stop swinging for the fences. All you have to be is solid."
"When you chase perfection, when you make perfection the ultimate goal, do you know what you’re doing? You’re chasing something that doesn’t exist."
"I find peace in his claim that perfectionism is voluntary. Perfectionism is something I chose, and it’s ruining me, and I can choose something else."
"He says, You have to suffer. You have to lose a shitload of close matches. And then one day you’re going to win a close one and the skies are going to part."
"Winning all four is the true Holy Grail. So, in 1995, in Palermo, I decide that I will chase this Grail, full speed ahead."
"I never forget. Something Becker is about to learn the hard way."
"I swallow a sleeping pill and down a vodka, and when I open my eyes the plane is taxiing to the gate in Melbourne."
"I scream louder. I’m penalized a point. I’m one motherfucking cocksucker away from getting DQ’d for the tournament."
"Sportswriters accuse me of tanking, not going for every ball. They never get it right. When I tank, they say I’m not good enough; when I’m not good enough, they say I tank."
"This is my favorite place in New York, Brooke says, so I christen it my favorite too."
"Campagnola quickly becomes an extension of our kitchen, and then of our entire relationship."
"Helping Frankie provides more satisfaction and makes me feel more connected and alive and myself than anything else that happens in 1996."
"This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others."
"I know, as I’m bouncing the ball, just about to serve, that I’ll soon be seated at the corner table, eating buttery fried shrimp with white wine sauce and lemon."
"Whenever I know that I don’t deserve to win, that I’m unworthy of winning, I torture myself."
"I feel better, my aches and anxieties fade, when Frankie throws out his arms and smiles and whisks us to our table."
"Whenever I grow tired of the girl I’m dating, or she grows tired of me, as if a timer goes off in my heart."
"Maybe marriage—the ultimate match play, the ultimate single elimination tournament—is the same way."
"I know the kind of ring Brooke wants—round, Tiffany cut—because she’s told me."
"Rock bottom can be very cozy, because at least you’re at rest."
"I feel deep guilt, and I’m beset by premonitions of doom."
"I can’t feel this way. I refuse to admit that I feel this way."
"As if they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth, someone standing directly behind me, I hear these words: You know what? Fuck it. Yeah. Let’s get high."
"Every shot is an educated guess, and I’m no longer educated."
"I scan the crowd and spot Gil, Brooke, Brad. I look for my father, but he’s hiding."
"I’m an athlete, my body should be able to handle this."
"I sit in the locker room for an hour, head bowed."
"I fall a few steps behind Brooke and drop to one knee on the sand."
"I’m kissing her and thinking, I really wish I’d thought this through."
"I’m pounding Bruguera, moving him from corner to corner."
"I feel my heart swell, and it has nothing to do with tennis."
"I feel ashamed, of course. I’ve always been a truthful person."
"It’s not about my comeback. It’s about my team."
"We talk about things. We talk about nothing."
"I fall onto the bed and immediately pass out."
"The doctor says I have an impingement. Pressure on the nerve."
"This is going to be my year, I tell Spadea—1998 is my year."
"I lose to Berasategui. It’s an unthinkable loss."
"He looks as if he’s done nothing for the last month but practice."
"He’s one of the hardest guys on the tour to pass, and even harder to dislike."
"I run two miles through Rock Creek Park, the same park where I gave my rackets away in 1987."
"There is a moment of regret, followed by vast sadness."
"You don’t have to be better than the whole fucking world, remember? You just have to be better than one guy."
"You’re not moving. You’re not hitting. You may think you are, but trust me, you’re just standing there."
"If you’re going down, OK, go down, but go down with guns blazing. Always, always, always, go down with both guns blaaazing."
"The sun is coming up when Brad and I walk back to the hotel. He puts his arm around me and says, 'The journey ended the right way.'"
"I realize I’m not done. I have promises yet to keep."
"It’s not just being defeated, it’s being disenfranchised."
"It’s the first time I’ve felt, or dared to say aloud, that I’m a grown-up."
"The way you’re not supposed to wake a sleepwalker."
"Stop thinking, she says. Feeling is the thing."
"Must be so many other places that you’d rather be."
"My father shouts, This fucker is talking shit!"
"I’ll tell you later, I say, reaching for the tequila."
"Whatever I’m feeling at this moment, it’s better than what those guys are feeling."
"My only hope is if it goes three or four sets. If it’s a fast match, where conditioning doesn’t come into play, I might get lucky."
"I think to myself: Mr. Grant might just have a problem today."
"My decisions become poor. I’m reminded how slight the margin can be on a tennis court, between greatness and mediocrity."
"Most people have weaknesses. Federer has none."