This was before I had Parisa or Ezi or any kind of team beyond my parents and a well-meaning woman from the Swedish tennis federation. I only realised on the day of the match that I hadn’t added my sponsor’s logos to my shirt, and they’d paid specifically to be on my sleeves. Since those got a lot of camera attention during the game, I already knew they would be a big deal to forget. With no one around to ask, I’d borrowed a sewing kit from the locker-room assistants, and the sponsors had been very happy to see their name all over the footage of my shock win.
Today, I wasn’t sewing to keep the sponsors happy, but I wasn’t going out there in front of the world again without something important in place. Not just for me, or for Toni, but for who knew how many kids watching on television?
Parisa had sourced these patches who knew where, but she got them to me on time. The two rectangular rainbows fit perfectly between my official sponsors’ logos, drawing the eye right to the spot as I stitched them as neatly as I could with white thread.
Celeste came in then, and if she thought it was weird to find me sewing, she said nothing. We wished each other a good game and retreated to our private dressing rooms.
Three tries left. Time to go.
Four games into the second set, the ball girl on my side of the net did what they were all terrified of doing: She tripped when scuttling across to retrieve the ball. The crowd gasped, because she really did look tiny in the huge arena. It was so unusual for one to even stumble that the officials froze for a moment in indecision.
I didn’t really think about it, but the instinct borne of countless scraped knees and stumbles had me jogging over to her, dropping my racquet so I could check for injuries.
“You okay?” I asked. The crowd were murmuring that I had gone over, and I could feel the officials approaching behind me. The little girl looked terrified, assuming they were coming to scold her and pull her off court for messing up. She was struggling not to cry, so I summoned the best French I could fumble together.
“Ça va?”
Her lip trembled and she pointed to her left knee, already trickling blood down her shin for her socks to absorb. The apologies tumbled out next, in perfect English, that she didn’t mean to ruin my concentration.
“We’re okay. Can I tell you a secret?”
“What?”
“When you’ve played the final lots of times, you don’t need to concentrate anymore. Come on, let’s get you fixed up. Ready?”
She nodded, and I stood up while taking her hand. “What’s your name?”
“Olivia.”
“Okay, Olivia, go get that cleaned up. Nobody is mad, I promise.”
I handed her over to the head of the ball boys and girls. The umpire called my name over the microphone, and I looked back at him in confusion. Was he going to call me out for some kind of violation? Screw that.
I watched Olivia get helped back towards the changing areas and picked up my racquet, only to shove it under my arm and start clapping for her. The crowd finally got the hint and joined in, Celeste too. I saw Olivia smile at that, and satisfied at last, I walked back to the baseline ready to receive service again.
I found myself struggling to keep my usual neutral expression. Olivia. That was a nice name for a little girl.
No, I had taken the first set, and I was still on track for the second. No wandering thoughts, no distractions. Olivia’s scraped knee would be fine, and she’d no doubt be back at it next summer. Celeste bounced the ball, ready to launch it at me, and I readied myself all over again.
Celeste seemed to be flagging when I broke her serve in the second set. We never made real eye contact during a match, but I recognised the frustration in the set of her impressive shoulders, in how her feet seemed just a little more bound to the clay than her usual constant motion. All I had to do from there was hold my own serve, and the trophy was mine.
The replicas we got to take home were pretty enough in their own right, but that wasn’t my incentive. Winning now meant equalling a decades-old record and setting myself alongside the greats of the game. It wasn’t what I pictured starting out. I hadn’t dared dream of this even at my most arrogant.
Then, at thirty-love, the little bastard went. That same hip muscle that had disrupted so much of the last season just failed to extend and stretch like it had a thousand times before. I managed to cover the initial tearing pain by thumping the failed serve into the net, a cry of frustration echoing around the stadium. I couldn’t step off at that point, not within two points of the Championship. Whether through adrenaline or sheer bloody-mindedness, I got the next ball over the net and played out the rally without having to hold my side. Celeste got the best of me on my backhand and pulled it back to 30-15.
Shit.
I wish I could say exactly how I claimed those next two points, but I went after them like they were a couple of painkillers: something I was badly in need of. I knew I wasn’t holding myself correctly, that I was likely making it worse, but I knew interrupting for medical treatment would be fatal to my chances. Give Celeste a chance to get back into it and she’d come for me.
It took a cheeky drop shot to
