The summer of 1957, when I was sixteen, I had entered the 18-and-unders, at the USTA sponsored Clay Court Championships at the Newton Tennis & Squash Club, in hopes of ending a four tournament out-in-the-first-round losing streak.
The morning of my match, I received a call from Bud Collins, the tournament director. The future prolific writer, tennis historian, and national broadcaster was then, a sports columnist for the Boston “Herald.” He gave lessons at the Longwood Cricket Club and had his own store in Newton Center, where I used to hang out, buy balls, and listen to him banter about the tennis legends.
“Can you be here earlier?” Bud said. “You’re on at ten.”
“I can,” I said, not sorry I wouldn’t be playing under the noon sun.
I finished my breakfast, two eggs over easy, two strips of bacon, and toast with jam. I had planned on a hit against the board, but now there wasn’t time. I went through my warm-up stretches and dressed in fresh whites. I didn’t call Tom, my coach. I hoped by the time he arrived I’d be in the second round.xxx
xxx
When I was thirteen, my passion for tennis had gotten a boost. A summer of private lessons at the Hyannis-port Club. The memory of how good those particular red clay courts felt under my feet remained in muscle memory. So did how strong and independent I’d felt, pedaling my bike there and back, often playing all afternoon with teenage club members. Tennis made me feel like I had something special, and, for starters, I planned to use it to acclimate to the private school at which my parents had enrolled me. When we returned to Boston in August, I’d met Tom, a twenty-five year old graduate student in English, who had offered to coach me for free. Tom’s hopes of making me a champion had meshed with my own wild fantasies.
xxx
I wrote my first book in 7th grade for Mrs. Harrison’s Social Studies Class, a project titled “Career Notebook: What I Want to Be When I Grow Up.” Professional tennis player, I said, a choice based on nothing more than batting balls after dinner with friends on a cracked blacktop court, playing doubles at summer camp on the Brown Team, and the odd conjunction of getting my period for the first time while watching the now Vic Seixas and Tony Trabert, lose to Ken Rosewall and Lew Hoad at Longwood Cricket Club the summer of 1953.
xxx
I’d learned to fantasize with my father, who had a strong streak of pretend, but I was also enthralled by a picture in our photo album of a handsome young man from Lithuania, my mothers’s great cousin, who was reviled as a “dreamer.” I am sure I did not know before or after my research that many women players stop menstruating from the rigors of training, but that idea would have appealed to me too. In 1954, the popular choice of Mother, Nurse, or Teacher felt like a noose to me. (It must have felt worse to Charlotte Monday, who announced a plan to join a circus as an acrobat, a pick even further from the pack than mine, since she threw up in gym class when attempting a simple somersault.) My mother and father were never pleased or proud of my late-bloom athleticism — as a seven year old I’d been sufficiently inhibited that my mother was repeatedly called to the school to conference with the gym teacher about my inability to climb ropes or jump the horse and my panic when thrown a ball. My mother didn’t care if I never played leap-frog, but did eventually appease the authorities by signing me up for ballet classes. My mother’s fear of aggression in sports, speech, or even facial expression made me feel brave in comparison, but by nature or nurture, I have always been timid, performed poorly in competition, and found devious ways to compete when I do. My forty-two page booklet was highly imaginative, with eye-catching photos of players gleaned from tennis magazines, and interviews with players and coaches, entirely made-up. I got A+.
I’d made varsity freshman year, played first doubles, and in 1957, stood right behind Jenny Hayes, a top-ten ranked N.E. player. I could take a set off her in practice but never had beaten her when we played a ladder match. Aside from tennis, I hated the new school, I hadn’t been the instant success I’d imagined. I hadn’t even been nominated for a single committee: Lunchroom; Athletics; Social; or Library. My wish to transfer had fallen on deaf parental ears. My parents had their own problems.
xxx
The club was in a suburb of Boston. Once you passed through the gates, the busy, commercial street vanished, and you knew you were in the land of the rich and privileged. The club house smelled of good wood. The paneled walls had evenly spaced, framed pictures of past champions, handsome, substantial people of the community, creating a feeling of history and opulence. The bulletin boards and ladder up-dates looked like something I would have liked to be part of. The spectator stands ran the length of the courts, rows of comfortable chairs, under a green and white sailcloth canopy. Whenever I entered a private club, I always felt like I was on an ocean liner, traveling far from the world of public courts, troubled thoughts, and family. Tables of cold drinks, candy bars, visors and fans, free tokens of belonging, beckoned. I looked up into the blue sky, and the world disappeared, except for the tops of the ancient East Coast maples and elms poking holes in the fluffy white clouds.
“ I’m here for the 18’s,” I said to the woman at the sign-in desk.]
She raised her eyebrows so they slid underneath her perfectly cut blond bangs. “You know it’s been scrapped?”
“What!” I said. “Bud said I was playing at ten.”
“You are.” She pointed to my name on the main draw.
I was pitted against the No. 1 seed: Mrs. Baba Lewis.
“It’s not fair,” I said, when I found Bud. He was drinking coffee and eating a raised donut. (You are a liar and a thief, whoops that’s Serena, last weekend when Carlos Ramos cited her for three code violations)
“Sorry, cookie,” Bud said. “We only had five juniors. Look at it as an opportunity to grow up. And to shake the hand that shook the hand of ‘Little Mo’ Connolly and Shirley Fry.” He put down his coffee cup—offered a “thumbs-up.”
xxx
Mrs. Baba Lewis was resplendent in her seersucker tennis dress, which fitted neatly and loosely and looked like it had been made for her by Ted Tinsley. Baba Lewis was often ranked No. 1 in New England and in the top-ten nationally. She had won the Canadian Open Championships twice in both singles and doubles. She had competed at Wimbledon and the US Open for almost two decades. She was then in her mid-thirties and would play the USO until 1963, where it would take the eventual winner, Maria Bueno, to knock her off in the third round. To a hot shot sweet sixteen she looked both ancient and awesome.
Warming up, I started well, hitting through my nerves, painting the lines. Her ball was clean and hard, flat off the forehand, flat or sliced off the backhand. I loved her ball. It was just the kind I liked to put away. I felt like I had walked onto a page of my tennis magazine. Here I was on my favorite surface, red clay, with someone who had devoted years of her life to one endeavor, someone I could admire and wish to emulate. My confidence soared. I could open up my shoulders and go for my shots. I was going to beat her. I wished I’d called my coach. I stood at the net and knifed my volleys. I worked it over in my mind, how I’d tell him about my winning in three, no, two sets. I buried several overheads.
We practiced our serves. I stopped and returned a few of hers. I hummed “Yankee Doodle-Dandy!” I had Mercury’s fast feet, and the mind of a thief. Once I’d eliminated the No. 1 seed, the draw would open up. Players would fall like dominoes. I’d be written up in the newspaper. I’d get hundreds of ranking points. Tom would drop his newest protégé, Matt-the-Brat, like a hot potato and devote himself entirely to me. Even my parents would be impressed.
Two minutes.
There was a clock high on the wall behind the court. I could see the hands moving, but each moment was so full, time stopped.
Mrs. Baba Lewis sat down in her chair. I’d worn her out. I took more serves, bouncing the ball from a crouch, then rising, like a sail expanded, with my breath and racket, exploded, falling forward into the court. I was lit like a 500 watt bulb, a neon sign, blinking, “Go! Go! Go!” I loved the tennis court, the game, the balls, the sound of them on my strings. It was my favorite music, a swim on a hot day, my Taj Mahal. On court, I was graceful, swift, the dancer of my mother’s dreams.
One minute.
I sprinted to my chair. Everything I did was to impress Mrs. Lewis, Bud, whomever was watching me. I had no idea this was a weakness. I bent over from the waist, removed a small towel from my bag and touched it to my face, even though I never sweated.
Time.
I felt a shiver. Wondered whether it was the excitement or the dawn of dread.
xxx
A half hour later, I was off the court, double-bageled-by-Baba.
She had played differently than in warm-up. And so had I. She hadn’t missed a beat. The lines were hers. I’d scrambled and cursed but wasn’t anywhere near the second or third ball in any exchange. Her speed put her to my ball with plenty of time to wrong foot and go behind me. She had a drop volley to die for. I reached one and shoveled it back over the net, but she had followed it in, caught it on her strings, and angled it by me. She returned my serve for winners and aced me more times than I could count. On a rare short ball, I came to net, and she threw up a lob. I back-tracked, swung too early, missed it, and tweaked my neck. The court became a fun-house mirror, the net raised to volleyball height, and I was two-feet tall. I had hiccups and tachycardia most of the second set. PAUSE Then, in the last game, I got hold of my panic. The net snapped back in place, and my feet felt the firm red turf. I served well enough to reach deuce, and we battled, deuce, advantage, twice, before she broke me.
When we shook hands, I noticed her nice eyes. I felt a pang of regret for losing the way I had. I almost asked if we could play the match over.
…
I called Tom and told him the 18’s had been scratched. I traded my whites for pink Jamaican shorts and a crimson polo shirt, kicked off my sneakers, and slipped my feet into four-inch, strapless mules. With a stylish straw hat down low and sunglasses, any resemblance to a tennis player who had been humiliated was purely coincidental.
I still wonder at how much I’d wanted the victory. I needed a magic moment and had been convinced that tennis would carry me, like a wave, past family trouble and adolescent weirdness. I thought it might make everyone at school like me and my parents proud. After that match, I knew it would not.
For the rest of the tournament, I became Baba’s best fan. It wasn’t winning, but it was the next best thing. When she hoisted the trophy over her head, it seemed weightless. Her smile was pure pleasure as she kissed it.