I’d seen more than a few op-eds in sports magazines about how Carrie Soto acts more like a machine than a woman and The Battle Axe never seems to enjoy her wins. Other players on the tour would mention in interviews that I wasn’t very friendly. As if I was supposed to befriend the very same women I was defeating week after week.
I would read tabloids in airports, and whenever my name was mentioned, there was always some crack about how I didn’t smile enough.
I can’t tell you how many times I flipped through a magazine only to come across someone trashing me in print. I’d hand it to my father so that I wouldn’t look at it. But five minutes later, I’d take it back and continue torturing myself.
No matter how good I was on the court, I was never good enough for the public.
It wasn’t enough to play nearly perfect tennis. I had to do that and also be charming. And that charm had to appear effortless.
I couldn’t seem to be trying to get them to like me. I could not let anyone ever suspect that I might want their approval. I saw the way they wrote about a player like Tanya McLeod, the way they had contempt for her for trying so hard to be cute. I had contempt for it too.
But c’mon. That’s an awfully small needle to thread.
And the eye of that needle just got smaller and smaller the more successful I became.
It was okay to win as long as I acted surprised when I did and attributed it to luck. I should never let on how much I wanted to win or, worse, that I believed I deserved to win. And I should never, under any circumstances, admit that I did not believe all of my opponents were just as worthy as I was.
The bulk of the commentators…they wanted a woman whose eyes would tear up with gratitude, as if she owed them her victory, as if she owed them everything she had.
I don’t know if it had ever been within me to act like that, but by the age of twenty, it was long gone.
And it cost me.
By the time I was a Grand Slam champion, ranked number two in the world, I had fewer endorsement deals than any of the other players in the top ten. I had no real friendships on the tour or elsewhere.
And while I’d slept around a lot, the longest relationship I’d ever had was with an actor I’d been with a few times at the Chateau Marmont when he was filming in L.A.
He was a huge tennis fan. He’d been there when I won Wimbledon the year before. Maybe it was because of that that I had thought he might actually like me. But after a few weeks, without warning, he stopped calling.
I convinced myself that he’d lost my number. So I tracked down his agent and tried to leave him a message. Upon hearing his agent’s cringing pause, I realized he hadn’t lost my number at all.
So I fucking better be ranked number one. What else did I have?
“Stepanova’s not as good as I am, Dad,” I said. “But she’s still squeaking out way more titles than she should, and that’s how she’s beating me in the end-of-the-year rankings.”
“You go weeks at a time where you’re ranked number one,” he said. “The end-of-the-year ranking is not the best metric.”
“I’m supposed to be the greatest by all metrics,” I said.
My father put his fork down and looked at me as I continued.
“If I am not number one at the end of the year, it is because I did not win enough of the right matches, and thus I am not yet the greatest.”
My father frowned. “Como quieras, Carolina.”
“We need to work harder,” I said. “Both of us. We need to be out on the court twice as much. You need to look inside your little bag of tricks and come up with another angle I’m not seeing. Stepanova has gotten quicker now, to keep up with me. Have you noticed that?”
“Hija, you are everything we wanted you to be. And time will show that you are the better player,” he said. “Stepanova’s going to be out in just a few years. She’s already ruining her shoulder. And then your reign will be longer.”
“If I am number one only after she’s done, I’m not the greatest. She is.”
“But you will go down in history as the more decorated player.”
“I want the record to show that now. We need a plan.”
My father pushed his plate away. “Hija, I don’t know how much better you can get.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think I have done you a disservice,” my father finally said, looking me in the eye. “I told you from such a young age that you could be the very best. But I never explained to you that it’s about aiming for excellence, not about stats.”