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Afterward, reporters ask if I’m OK. They don’t sound accusatory or mean. They sound like Perry and Brad. They’re actually concerned, trying to figure out what’s wrong.

Brooke is remarkably unconcerned. I lose all the time now, and the only time I don’t lose is when I pull out of a tournament, and her only comment is that she enjoys having me around more. Also, since I’m generally playing less often, she says I’m not as moody.

Her oblivion is partly due to the wedding planning, but also her rigorous premarital training regimen. She’s working with Gil to get in shape for that white dress. She’s running, lifting, stretching, counting every calorie. For added motivation, she tapes a photo on the refrigerator door, and around the photo she puts a magnetic heart frame. It’s a photo of the perfect woman, she says. The perfect woman with the perfect legs—the legs Brooke wants.

Astonished, I stare at the photo. I reach out and touch the frame.

Is that—?

Yep, Brooke says. Steffi Graf.

I PLAY DAVIS CUP IN APRIL, looking for a spark. I practice hard, train hard. We’re up against the Netherlands. My first match, in Newport Beach, is against Sjeng Schalken. He’s six foot five but serves like a man five foot six. Still, he strikes the ball cleanly, and like me he’s a punisher, a baseliner who stays back and tries to run an opponent into the ground. I know what I’m in for. The day is sunny, windy, and weird—Dutch fans wear wooden shoes and wave tulips. I beat Schalken in three wearying sets.

Two days later I play Jan Siemerink, aka the Garbage Man. He’s a lefty, an excellent volleyer, who gets to the net quick and covers it well. But that’s the only part of his game that isn’t comically, fundamentally unsound. Every Siemerink forehand looks mishit, every backhand seems shanked. Even his serve has a wacky, slingy quality. Garbage. I start the match confident, then recall that his lack of form is a powerful weapon. His abysmal shotmaking keeps you always off balance. Your timing never feels right. After two hours, I’m wrong-footed, breathing hard, and have a splitting headache. I’m also down two sets to love. Still, somehow I win, making me 24–4 in Davis Cup play, one of the best records ever compiled by an American. Sportswriters praise this small part of my game, and ask why I can’t translate it to the rest of my game. Even if their praise is tempered, I bask in it. It feels good. I give a small thanks for Davis Cup.

On the other hand, Davis Cup plays havoc with my manicure schedule. Brooke has made many requests of me for the wedding, but her non-negotiable demand is that my nails be perfect. I pick at my cuticles, a lifelong nervous habit, and when she puts a wedding band on my finger, she says, she wants my hands looking their best. Just before my match with the Garbage Man, and again after the match, I submit. I sit myself in the manicurist’s chair, watch the woman work at my cuticles, and tell myself this feels as off balance and wrong-footed as my match against the Garbage Man.

I think: Now this is what I call garbage.

WITH FOUR HELICOPTERS full of paparazzi circling overhead, on April 19, 1997, Brooke and I get married. The ceremony takes place in Monterey, in a tiny church that’s stiflingly, criminally hot. I’d give anything for a puff of fresh air, but the windows must remain shut to block out the noise of the helicopters.

The heat is one reason I break out in a sweat during the ceremony. The main reason, however, is that my body and nerves are shot. As the priest drones on, sweat drips from my brow, from my chin, from my ears. Everyone is looking. They’re sweating too, but not like me.

The jacket of my new Dunhill tuxedo is soaked. Even my shoes squish when I walk. They’re also fitted with lifts, another non-negotiable demand from Brooke. She’s nearly six feet tall and she doesn’t want to tower over me in our photos, so she’s wearing old-fashioned pumps with minimal heels, and I’m wearing what feel like stilts.

Before we leave the church, a decoy bride, a stand-in for Brooke, leaves first. To throw the paparazzi off the scent. The first time I heard about this plan, I tuned it out, refused to pay attention. Now, as I see the Brooke look-alike leaving, I have a thought no man should have on his wedding day: I wish I were leaving too. I wish I had a decoy groom to take my place.

A horse-drawn carriage is standing by to whisk Brooke and me to the reception, at a ranch called Stonepine. But first we have a short car ride to the carriage. I sit in the car beside Brooke, staring into my lap. I feel mortified about my attack of hysterical sweats. Brooke tells me it’s OK. She’s very sweet, but it’s not OK. Nothing is OK.

Into the reception we go, into a solid wall of noise. I see a whirling carousel of faces—Philly, Gil, J.P., Brad, Slim, my parents. There are famous people I don’t know, have never met, but vaguely recognize. Friends of Brooke? Friends of friends? Some of the Friends from Friends? I catch sight of Perry, my best man and the self-anointed wedding producer. He wears a Madonna headset so he can be in constant communication with the photographers and florists and caterers. He’s so jacked up, so high-strung, he’s making me more nervous, which I didn’t think was possible.

At the end of the night, Brooke and I stagger up to our bridal suite, which I’ve arranged to have filled with hundreds of candles. Too many candles—the room is an oven. It’s hotter than the church. Again I start to sweat. We start to blow out the candles, and the smoke detectors go off. We disable the smoke detectors and open the windows. While the room cools we go downstairs, back to the reception, to spend our wedding night eating chocolate mousse with the wedding party.

The following afternoon, at a barbecue for friends and family, Brooke and I make a grand entrance. As per Brooke’s plan, we wear cowboy hats and denim shirts and arrive on horses.

Mine is named Sugar. Her sad glassy eyes remind me of Peaches. People surround me, talk at me, congratulate me, slap me on the back, and I need to run away. I spend a good portion of the barbecue with my nephew, Skyler, son of Rita and Pancho. We get hold of a bow and arrow and take target practice with a distant oak.

While drawing back the bow, I feel a sudden twinge in my wrist.

I PULL OUT OF THE 1997 FRENCH OPEN. Of all the surfaces, clay is the worst on a tender wrist. There is no way I can last five sets against the dirt rats, who’ve been practicing and drilling on clay while I’ve been getting manicures and riding Sugar.

But I will go to Wimbledon. I want to go. Brooke has landed an acting job in England, which means she can accompany me. This will be good, I think. A change of venue. A trip, our first as husband and wife, to somewhere other than an island.

Though, come to think of it, England is an island.

In London we spend several happy nights. Dinner with friends. An experimental play. A walk along the Thames. The stars are lined up for a good Wimbledon. And then I decide that I’d rather jump in the Thames. Out of nowhere I can’t bring myself to practice.

I tell Brad and Gil I’m pulling out of the tournament. I’m in vapor lock.

Brad says, What the hell does vapor lock mean?

I’ve played this game for a lot of reasons, I say, and it just seems like none of them has ever been my own.

The words come tumbling out, with no forethought, just as they did that night with Slim.

But they sound remarkably true. So much, in fact, that I write them down. I repeat them to reporters. And to mirrors.

After pulling out of the tournament I stay on in London, waiting for Brooke to finish filming.

We go out one night with a group of actors to a world-famous restaurant Brooke is eager to try. The Ivy. Brooke and the actors talk over each other while I silently hunker down at one end of the table, eating. Grazing, actually. I order five courses, and for dessert I shovel three sticky toffee puddings into my mouth.