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He’s a punk—you’re a legend!

I want this, I tell myself. I don’t need it, but I do want it.

I order coffee from room service, then sit at the desk and write in my journal. It’s not like me to keep a journal, but I’ve recently begun one, and it’s quickly become a habit. I’m compelled to write. I’m obsessed with leaving a record, in part because I’ve developed a gnawing fear that I won’t be around long enough for Jaden to know me. I live on airplanes, and with the world becoming more dangerous, more unpredictable, I fear that I won’t be able to tell Jaden all that I’ve seen and learned. So every night, wherever I am, I jot a few lines to him. Random thoughts, impressions, lessons learned. Now, before going to the Shanghai stadium, I write: Hey Buddy. You’re in Vegas with Mom and I’m in Shanghai, missing you. I have a chance at finishing number one after this tournament. But I promise I can only think about getting home to you. I put a lot of pressure on myself with my tennis. But I’m strangely driven to continue. It took me a while to figure that out. I fought it for so long. Now I just work as hard as I can and let the rest fall where it may. It still doesn’t feel great most of the time, but I push through it, for the sake of so much good. Good for the game, good for your future, good for many at my school. Always value others, Jaden. There is so much peace in taking care of people. I love you and am there for you always.

I close the journal, walk out of the room, and get clipped by Jiri Novak, from the Czech Re-public. Humiliating. Worse, I can’t leave the country and go home. I have to hang around an extra day to play a kind of consolation match.

Back at the hotel, choked with emotion, I write again to Jaden: I just lost my match and I feel terrible. I don’t want to go back out there tomorrow. So much so I was actually wishing for an injury. Picture that, not wanting to do something so much that you wish upon yourself injury. Jaden, if you ever feel overwhelmed with something like I was tonight, just keep your head down and keep working and keep trying. Face it at its worst and realize it’s not so bad. That will be your chance for peace. I wanted to quit and leave and go home and see you. It’s hard to stay and play, it’s easy to go home and be with you. That’s why I’m staying.

AT THE END OF THE YEAR, as expected, Hewitt is number one. I tell Gil we need to take it up a notch. He outlines a new regimen for the older me. He pulls ideas from his da Vinci notebooks, and we spend weeks working solely on my deteriorating lower body. Day in, day out, he stands over me as I build my legs, yelling, Big thunder! Australia’s calling!

Weak legs command, Gil says. Strong legs obey.

By the time we board the Ambien Express, Vegas to Melbourne, I feel as if I could run or swim there. I’m the second seed in the 2003 Australian Open, and I come out growling, ferocious. I reach the semis and beat Ferreira in ninety minutes. In six matches I’ve dropped only one set.

In the final I face Rainer Schuettler, from Germany. I win three straight sets, losing only five games and tying the most lopsided victory ever at the Australian Open. My eighth slam, and it’s my best performance ever. I tease Stefanie that it’s like one of her matches, the closest I’ll ever come to experiencing her kind of dominance.

As they hand me the trophy, I tell the crowd: There’s not a single day that’s guaranteed to us, and certainly days like this are very rare.

Someone says later that I sounded as if I’d had a near-death experience.

More like a near-life experience. It’s how a person talks when he almost didn’t live.

I’m the oldest player in thirty-one years to win a slam, and reporters won’t let me hear the end of it. Again and again, before I leave Australia, reporters ask if I have a plan for retirement. I tell them I don’t plan endings any more than I plan beginnings. I’m the last of a generation, they say. Last of the 1980s Mohicans. Chang announces he’s retiring. Courier is already three years into his retirement. People treat me like a codger, because Stefanie is expecting again and it’s well known that we tool around Vegas in a minivan. Still, I feel eternal.

Ironically, my lack of flexibility seems to be stretching out my career. It helps my durability.

Since I can’t turn well, I always keep the racket close to my body, always keep the ball out in front of me. Thus, I don’t put unnecessary stress and torque on my frame. With such form, Gil says, my body might have another three years in it.

AFTER A SHORT BREATHER IN VEGAS, we fly to Key Biscayne. I’ve won this tournament two years in a row, five times overall, and nothing can stop me. I reach the final and beat Moyá, my old adversary from the French Open, who’s ranked number five. Straight sets.

My sixth win here, which tops Stefanie’s record. Again, I tease her about finally doing something better than she did it. She’s so competitive, however, I know not to tease her too much.

PLAYING IN THE U.S. MEN’S CLAY COURT CHAMPIONSHIPS, in Houston, I just need to reach the finals and I’ll be ranked number one again. And I do. I beat Jürgen Melzer, 6–4, 6–1, and go out with Darren and Gil to celebrate. I throw down several vodka-cranberries. I don’t care that I’m playing in the final against Roddick tomorrow—I’m already ranked number one.

Which is why I beat him. That perfect blend of caring and not caring, the best preparation.

Days before my thirty-third birthday, I’m the oldest player ever ranked number one. I fly to Rome, feeling like Ponce de León, and get off the plane feeling a geriatric twinge in my shoulder. In the first round I play poorly, but don’t dwell on it, put it out of my mind. Weeks later, at the 2003 French Open, my shoulder is still sore, but my practices are crisp. Darren says I’m a force.

In the second round, I’m on the Suzanne Lenglen Court, a court filled with bad memories.

Losing to Woodruff in 1996. Losing to Safin in 1998. I’m playing a kid from Croatia, Mario Ancic. I lose the first two sets and trail in the third. He’s nineteen years old, six foot five, a serve-and-volleyer with no fear of me. The Lenglen court is supposed to be denser, slower, but today the ball is moving fast. I’m having an unusually hard time controlling it. I gather myself, however, and win the next two sets. In the fifth, exhausted, my shoulder falling off, I have match point four times, and lose them all. I double fault three of them. I beat the kid, at last, but only because he’s slightly more afraid of losing than I am.

I’m in the quarters against Guillermo Coria, from Argentina, another youngster. He says publicly I’m his idol. Listen, I tell reporters, I’d rather not be his idol and play him on hard court than be his idol and play him on clay. How I hate this dirt. I lose four of the first five games.

Then I win the set. How I love this dirt.

Coria shows no emotion, however. In the second set he jumps out to a 5–1 lead. He misses nothing. He’s fast and getting faster. Was I ever that fast? I try to confuse him, rush the net—to no avail. He’s just better than me today. He knocks me out of the tournament, and out of the number one slot.

In England, at a warm-up tournament before Wimbledon, I beat Peter Luczak, from Australia. It’s the one thousandth match of my career. When someone tells me this, I feel an overpowering need to sit down. I have a glass of wine with Stefanie and try to run my mind over all one thousand matches. I remember every one of them, I tell her.

Of course, she says.

For Stefanie’s birthday I take her to see Annie Lennox in London. She’s one of Stefanie’s favorites, but tonight she’s my muse. Tonight she’s singing, speaking, directly to me. In fact I make a point to tell Gil that we’ll need to include some Lennox on Belly Cramps 2. I might listen to her before every match.