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The TV shows highlights from our match. SportsCenter.

In my peripheral vision I detect slight movement. I turn to see Baghdatis extending his hand. His face says, We did that. I reach out, take his hand, and we remain this way, holding hands, as the TV flickers with scenes of our savage battle.

We relive the match, and then I relive my life.

Finally the doctors arrive. It takes them and the trainers half an hour to get Baghdatis and me on our feet. Baghdatis leaves the locker room first, gingerly, leaning against his coach.

Then Gil and Darren lead me out to the parking lot, enticing me forward a few more steps with the thought of a cheeseburger and a martini at P. J. Clarke’s. It’s two in the morning.

Christ, Darren says, as we emerge into the parking lot. The car is all the way over there, mate.

We squint at the lone car in the middle of the empty parking lot. It’s several hundred yards away. I tell him I can’t make it.

No, of course not, he says. Wait here and I’ll bring it around.

He runs off.

I tell Gil that I can’t stay upright. I need to lie down while we wait. He sets my tennis bag on the cement and I sit, then lie back, using the bag as a pillow.

I look up at Gil. I see nothing but his smile and his shoulders. I look just beyond his shoulders at the stars. So many stars. I look at the light stanchions that rim the stadium. They seem like bigger, closer stars.

Suddenly, an explosion. A sound like a giant can of tennis balls being opened. One stanchion goes out. Then another, and another.

I close my eyes. It’s over.

No. Hell no. It will never really be over.

· · ·

I’M HOBBLING THROUGH THE LOBBY of the Four Seasons the next morning when a man steps out of the shadows. He grabs my arm.

Quit, he says.

What?

It’s my father—or a ghost of my father. He looks ashen. He looks as if he hasn’t slept in weeks.

Pops? What are you talking about?

Just quit. Go home. You did it. It’s over.

He says he prays for me to retire. He says he can’t wait for me to be done, so he won’t have to watch me suffer anymore. He won’t have to sit through my matches with his heart in his mouth. He won’t have to stay up until two in the morning to catch a match from the other side of the world, so he can scout some new wonderboy I might soon have to face. He’s sick of the whole miserable thing. He sounds as if—is it possible?

Yes, I see it in his eyes.

I know that look.

He hates tennis.

He says, Don’t put yourself through this anymore! After last night, you have nothing left to prove. I can’t see you like this. It’s too painful.

I reach out and touch his shoulder. I’m sorry, Pops. I can’t quit. This can’t end with me quitting.

THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE THE MATCH, I get an anti-inflammatory injection, but it’s different from the cortisone. Less effective. Against my third-round opponent, Benjamin Becker, I’m barely able to remain standing.

I look at the scoreboard. I shake my head. I ask myself over and over, How is it possible that my final opponent is a guy named B. Becker? I told Darren earlier this year that I wanted to go out against somebody I like and respect, or else against somebody I don’t know.

And so I get the latter.

Becker takes me out in four sets. I can feel the tape of the finish line snap cleanly across my chest.

U.S. Open officials let me say a few words to the fans in the stands and at home before heading into the locker room. I know exactly what I want to say.

With Stefanie, Jaden, and Jaz in the fall of 2006

Marcos Baghdatis congratulates me after the second round of the 2006 U.S. Open Centre Court, Wimbledon, 2000

I’ve known for years. But is still takes me a few moments to find my voice.

The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn’t say is what it is I have found. Over the last twenty-one years I have found loyalty: You have pulled for me on the court, and also in life. I have found inspiration: You have willed me to succeed, sometimes even in my lowest moments. And I have found generosity: You have given me your shoulders to stand on, to reach for my dreams—dreams I could have never reached without you. Over the last twenty-one years I have found you, and I will take you and the memory of you with me for the rest of my life.

It’s the highest compliment I know how to pay them. I’ve compared them to Gil.

In the locker room it’s deathly quiet. I’ve noticed through the years that every locker room is the same when you lose. You walk in the door—which slams open, because you’ve pushed it harder than you needed to—and the guys always scatter from the TV, where they’ve been watching you get your ass kicked. They always pretend they haven’t been watching, haven’t been discussing you. This time, however, they remain gathered around the TV. No one moves. No one pretends. Then, slowly, everyone comes toward me. They clap and whistle, along with trainers and office workers and James the security guard.

Only one man remains apart, refusing to applaud. I see him in the corner of my eye. He’s leaning against a far wall with a blank look on his face and his arms tightly folded.

Connors.

He’s now coaching Roddick. Poor Andy.

It makes me laugh. I can only admire that Connors is who he is, still, that he never changes. We should all be so true to ourselves, so consistent.

I tell the players: You’ll hear a lot of applause in your life, fellas, but none will mean more to you than that applause—from your peers. I hope each of you hears that at the end.

Thank you all. Goodbye. And take care of each other.

THE BEGINNING

RAIN HAS BEEN FALLING OFF AND ON ALL DAY.

Stefanie peers at the sky and says, What do you think?

Come on, I say—let’s try. I’m willing if you are.

Willing. She frowns. She’s always willing, but she can’t speak for her calf, which has been giving her problems since she retired. Especially lately. She looks down. Darned calf. She has a charity match in Tokyo next week. She’s playing to raise money for a kindergarten she’s opened in Eritrea, and even though it’s only an exhibition she wants to do well. She feels the old pressure to do well. Also, she can’t help but wonder how much game she has left.

I wonder the same thing about myself. It’s been a year since I walked off the court for the last time at the U.S. Open. It’s autumn, 2007.

So we’ve been planning all week to get out there, hit with each other, but now the day has come and it’s the one rainy day all year in Vegas.

We can’t build a fire in the rain.

Stefanie looks again at the overcast sky. Then at the clock. Busy day, she says. She has to pick up Jaden at school. We only have this small window.

IF THE RAIN DOESN’T LET UP, if we don’t hit, I might go down to my school, because that’s where I go whenever I have time. I can’t believe how it’s grown: a 26,000-square-foot education complex with 500 students and a waiting list of eight hundred.

The $40 million campus features everything the kids could want. A high-tech TV produc-tion studio. A computer room with dozens of PCs along the walls and a big, white, fluffy couch. A topflight exercise room with machines as fancy as those at the most exclusive clubs in Vegas. There’s a weight room, a lecture hall, and bathrooms as modern and clean as the ones in the city’s finest hotels. Best of all, the place is still freshly painted and pristine, just as sparkling as it was on opening day. Students, parents, the neighborhood, everyone respects the school because everyone owns it. The area hasn’t completely rebounded since we arrived. While I was giving a tour recently, someone was shot across the street. And yet in eight years not one window has been broken, not one wall has been sprayed with graffiti.