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Going to be a short day, I tell myself. I look up at my box, and there’s Barbra, flashes going off around her. I think: Is this really my life?

As the third set begins, Pete stumbles. I get a second wind. The set falls to me, as does the fourth. The wheel clicks in my direction. I see fear creep into Pete’s face. We’re tied, two sets apiece, and doubt, unmistakable doubt, is trailing him like the long afternoon shadows on the Wimbledon grass. For once, it’s not me but Pete yelling and cursing at himself.

In the fifth set, Pete’s wincing, kneading his shoulder. He asks for a trainer. During the delay, while he’s being worked on, I tell myself this match is mine. Two Wimbledons in a row—won’t that be something? We’ll see what the tabloids have to say then. Or what I’ll say.

How do you like your Burger King now?

When we resume play, however, Pete is a different person. Not revived, not reenergized—wholly different. He’s done it again, sloughed off that other doubt-ridden Pete as a snake sheds its skin. And now he’s in the process of shedding me. Leading 5–4, he starts the tenth game of the set by blasting three straight aces. But not just any aces. They even have a different sound about them. Like Civil War cannons. Triple match point.

Suddenly he’s walking toward the net, extending his hand, the victor once again. The handshake physically hurts, and it has nothing to do with my tender wrist.

· · ·

BACK AT THE BACHELOR PAD, days after losing to Pete, I have one simple goal. I want to avoid thinking about tennis for seven days. I just need a break. I’m heart sore, wrist sore, bone tired. I need to do nothing for one week—just sit and be quiet. No pain, no drama, no serves, no tabloids, no singers, no match points. I’m sipping my first cup of coffee, flipping through USA Today, when a headline catches my eye. Because my name is in it. Bollettieri Parts Ways with Agassi. Nick tells the newspaper he’s done with me. He wants to spend more time with his family. After ten years, this is how he lets me know. Not even a panda ass-up in my chair.

Minutes later a FedEx envelope arrives with a letter from Nick. It says no more than the newspaper story. I read it a few dozen times before putting it in a shoe box. I go to the mirror.

I don’t feel all that bad. I don’t feel anything. Numb. As if the cortisone has spread from my wrist to engulf my being.

I drive over to Gil’s and sit with him in the gym. He listens and feels bad and angry right along with me.

Well, I say, I guess it’s Break-Up-With-Andre time. First Wendi, now Nick.

My entourage is thinning faster than my hair.

THOUGH IT MAKES NO SENSE, I’d like to get on the court again. I want the pain that only tennis provides.

But not this much pain. The cortisone has completely worn off, and the needle-razor feeling in my wrist is simply too much. I see a new doctor, who says the wrist needs surgery. I see another doctor, who says more resting might do the trick. I side with the rest doctor. After four weeks of rest, however, I step on a court and realize with one swing that surgery is my only option.

I just don’t trust surgeons. I trust very few people, and I especially dislike the notion of trusting one perfect stranger, surrendering all control to one person whom I’ve only just met. I cringe at the thought of lying on a table, unconscious, while someone slices open the wrist with which I make my living. What if he’s distracted that day? What if he’s off? I see it happening on the court all the time—half the time it’s happening to me. I’m in the top ten, but some days you’d think I was a rank amateur. What if my surgeon is the Andre Agassi of medicine?

What if he doesn’t have his A game that day? What if he’s drunk or on drugs?

I ask Gil to be there in the operating room during my surgery. I want him to act as sentry, monitor, backstop, witness. In other words, I want him to do what he always does. Stand guard. But this time wearing a gown and mask.

He frowns. He shakes his head. He doesn’t know.

Gil has several endearingly dainty qualities, like his horror of the sun, but the most endearing is his squeamish streak. He can’t abide the sight of needles. He gets the willies when he has to have a flu shot.

For me, however, he’ll rally. He says, I’ll tough it out.

I owe you, I tell him.

Never, he says. No such thing as debts between us.

On December 19, 1993, Gil and I fly to Santa Barbara and check into the hospital. As nurses flutter about, prepping me, I tell Gil that I feel so nervous, I might pass out.

Then they won’t need to give you the gas.

This could be it, Gil, the end of my tennis career.

No.

Then what? What will I do?

They put a mask over my nose and mouth. Breathe deeply, they say. My eyelids are heavy. I fight to keep them open, fight against the loss of control. Don’t go away, Gil. Don’t leave me. I stare at Gil’s black eyes, above his surgical mask, watching, unblinking. Gil is here, I tell myself. Gil’s got this. Gil’s on duty. Everything’s going to be all right. I let my eyes close, let a kind of mist swallow me, and a half second later I’m waking and Gil is leaning over me, saying the wrist was worse than they thought. Much worse. But they cleaned it out, Andre, and we’ll hope for the best. That’s all we can do, right? Hope for the best.

I TAKE UP RESIDENCE on the green chenille double-stuffed goose-down couch, remote in one hand, phone in the other. The surgeon says I must keep my wrist elevated for several days, so I lie with it propped on a large, hard pillow. Though I’m on powerful pain pills, I still feel wounded, worried, vulnerable. At least I have something to distract me. A woman. A friend of Kenny G’s wife, Lyndie.

I met Kenny G through Michael Bolton, whom I met while playing Davis Cup. We were all at the same hotel. Then, out of the blue, Lyndie phoned me and said she’d met the perfect woman.

Well, I like perfect.

I think you two will really hit it off.

Why?

She’s beautiful, brilliant, sophisticated, funny.

I don’t think so. I’m still trying to get over Wendi. Plus, I don’t do setups.

You’ll do this setup. Her name is Brooke Shields.

I’ve heard of her.

What have you got to lose?

Plenty.

Andre.

I’ll think about it. What’s her number?

You can’t phone her. She’s in South Africa, doing a film.

She must have a phone.

Nope. She’s in the middle of nowhere. She’s in a tent, or a hut, in the bush. You can only reach her by fax.

She gave me Brooke’s fax number and asked for mine.

I don’t have a fax. It’s the only gadget I don’t have in the house.

I gave her Philly’s fax number.

Then, just before my surgery, I got a call from Philly.

You have a fax here at my house—from Brooke Shields?

And so it began. Faxes back and forth, a long-distance correspondence with a woman I’d never met. What began oddly became progressively more odd. The pace of the conversation was outrageously slow, and this suited us both—neither of us was in any hurry. But the enormous geographical distance also led us to quickly let down our guard. We segued within a few faxes from innocent flirting to innermost secrets. Within a few days our faxes took on a tone of fondness, then intimacy. I felt as if I were going steady with this woman I’d never met or spoken to.

I stopped phoning Barbra.

Now, immobilized, my bandaged wrist propped on the pillow, I have nothing to do but obsess about the next fax to Brooke. Gil comes over some days and helps me work through several drafts. I’m intimidated by the fact that Brooke graduated from Princeton with a degree in French literature, whereas I dropped out of ninth grade. Gil brushes aside such talk, pumps up my confidence.