I was now the most decorated tennis player by nearly every measure. Most Grand Slam singles titles ever. Most weeks at number one for any player in the history of the tour. Most singles titles, most aces over the course of a career. Most years ending number one. Highest-paid female athlete of all time.
I was the Carrie Soto I had always believed I could be.
I accepted the trophy that day as I had accepted all the others—my face stoic, my speech short. But this time, as I waved and turned to leave, I had to hobble off the court.
My left knee was killing me. It was often aching and tender all day. I’d get sharp pains when I bent it too far or put too much weight on it. I was getting cortisone shots, but they weren’t doing enough. It was beginning to slow me down on the court. And while I’d been able to withstand the pain through sheer force of will up until now, I knew I couldn’t do so much longer.
“Hija,” my father said over the phone. “You need surgery.”
“Stop,” I said, my voice clipped.
But I knew he was right. Before the US Open, my knee was so bad that I had to have painkillers injected directly into it, and I still lost in the semis to Suze Carter. Early the next year, I had to pull out of the Australian Open.
I took some time off, and when I came back, I could not get a foothold. In all of ’88, I did not win a single title.
* * *
—
Just before the start of Wimbledon in 1989, Lars sat me down at a hotel gym in London.
“It’s over, Carrie,” he said. “I have done all I can do. You have achieved what you will achieve.”
“No, it’s not over. I just…” I looked down at the floor and then back up at him, ready to admit what I had long been denying. “I need to get the surgery. Then I can come back.”
“Come back so you can lose more? Let everyone see the queen is dead?”
I flinched. “The queen is not dead,” I said.
Lars nodded his head. “Carrie, your body, your skills, they always had an expiration date. And it is now. You are thirty-one. It is time.”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe it is. But maybe it’s not.”
“It is.”
I looked him in the eye, starting to sense what was happening. “You already have another player lined up,” I said. “You’ve already decided.”
“It does not matter. Your body is done, Carrie,” he said. “I do not want to stick around to see what less-than-perfect version of yourself awaits us on the other end of your surgeries. I’m not interested in it.”
“I could bounce back. I could have the best parts of my career ahead of me.”
“Not in your thirties,” he said. “Don’t make me humor you about that. If you continue after Wimbledon, it will be without me as your coach.”
Lars stood up and left. And I sat there in the stale, cold gym, staring at a stationary bike. My knee ached just thinking about riding it.
Still, I ignored him and entered the main draw at Wimbledon. For the first time in almost ten years, I did not make it to the round of sixteen.
I fell so far in the rankings that I would have been unseeded at the US Open.
“Get surgery and see where you are,” my father said on the phone. I was in New York, preparing to enter the Open as a wild card. He was back in L.A., getting settled into the compound I had bought for the two of us. A main house for me, a guest house for him, a pool, and a tennis court. “You won’t know if your knee can be rehabilitated unless you try.”
“And take the chance I’ll lose again? In front of all of them?” I said. “Do you see how much they are loving this? My failure? No. I won’t give it to them. No.”
“So what are you going to do?” he said.
“I am not discussing this with you,” I said. “Ever. It’s not for you to say.”
“Okay,” he said. “Está bien.”
Two days later, in August 1989, I pulled out of the US Open and announced my retirement. “I have had a momentous run during a truly outstanding time in the world of tennis,” I said as I read my prepared statement at the lectern. “I have achieved everything I set out to achieve. I believe my accomplishments will be remembered in the decades to come. And now, I am done. Thank you.”
I did not play a professional match again.
Until now.
THE
COMEBACK
OCTOBER 1994
Three and a half months before Melbourne
I wake up at seven-fifteen. I drink a blueberry smoothie and eat raw unsalted almonds for breakfast. I put on my track pants and a T-shirt. I slip a sweatband across my forehead.