Break Point (9 page)
I jumped in the air with my racket over my head and let out a whoop. A whoop for clinching the match with a beautiful shot. A whoop for advancing to the finals, for coming one step closer to the silver cup.
But Maddy was hunched over on her side of the court, her hands on her knees, her head hanging down.
I wanted to go over to her but couldn't. It was bad form to cross into an opponent's court. Instead I waited at the net for the final handshake, knowing she had too much class to brush it off.
At last she came to the net and held out her hand. She was crying.
“Maddy, I⦔
“It's okay, Connor. Good game.”
“I wasn't trying to humiliate you,” I said.
“It's not that.” She bit her lip and looked away. “It's the club.”
She pulled her hand out of mine and walked off the court. Reaching the lawn, she broke into a run. I saw a couple of her friends step out of the crowd and follow her into the clubhouse. I went after her, but by the time I reached the clubhouse, she was hiding out in the girls' locker room.
I stood alone in the front hall of the tennis club and wondered how being a winner could make you feel like so much of a loser.
The final match between Rex and me got underway at six o'clock that evening. Rex had faced an unexpectedly tough opponent in the semis. He was a kid named Sergei who'd recently come from Russia with his parents. Sergei had won the first set against Rex and pushed the second to a tiebreaker. I'd caught some of the third set and seen enough of Sergei's massive forehand and killer backhand to be thankful I hadn't faced him.
Before the finals began, Armand yanked me aside.
“Make Rex run, Connor,” he whispered. “He's got no legs left.”
The crowd on the lawn had swelled since my semifinal against Maddy, blocking my view of the executor and his gleaming silver cup. Most of the competitive juniors and their parents were there. There were also gray-haired old-timers who remembered Mr. Cross and were curious to see who would win his cup.
Rex won the toss and took first serve. I crouched in ready position at the baseline, awaiting the onslaught of his serve-and-volley attack.
But the serve and volley never came. Rex stayed at the baseline while I whipped the return crosscourt. He whipped it back and dug in at the baseline, pummeling me with forehands and backhands, trying to kill me with power shots. This was my kind of game, a baseline rally. I could go on like this all day. But why was Rex playing my kind of game?
Rex was a serve-and-volley guy. He was a guy with tricks and technique, a guy who was at his best flitting up and down the court, dancing circles around his opponent. What was he doing playing baseline tennis? There was only one answer. Flitting around the court took speed and energy. It took legs. After the five-mile run yesterday, the night of partying and the marathon match against Sergei, Rex had no legs left. Armand was right.
I knew what I had to do. Grind him down. Wear him out. I sent him running from corner to corner on the rallies, and though I lost the first three games, by the fourth Rex was flagging. I took three games in a row, pushed the score in the first set to 5-6, then 6-6, then lost a squeaker in the tiebreaker. I had never come so close to beating Rex in my life.
As I passed him switching sides, Rex winced with every step. If only I could win the next set, I might be able to outlast him in the third and win the match through sheer endurance.
By the second game of the second set, Rex's pace was half a step slower than at the beginning of the match. By the third game, he was a full step off his speed. He missed balls he should have reached. He gave up on shots he should have returned.
Strategy, now, was worth as much as strength. In the first set, I'd hit a number of balls out of bounds because I was trying to make him run to reach them. Now, since he could cover less court, I had more room to play with. I didn't need to aim so close to the sidelines. That meant I would lose fewer points on unforced errors. And as I cut down on my rate of unforced errors, Rex began racking them up. He was getting frustrated. He started double-faulting on serves and sending shots into the net.
I broke his serve in the second set to bring the score to 5-4 in my favor. All I needed to win the set was to hold serve on the final game.
I served into the glare of the evening sun, but even that didn't bother me. My serve was flowing on a circuit of pure muscle memory. I felt as though I could have hit it blindfolded, like the pinball wizard in that old song by The Who. At set point, I fired a beautiful backhand down the line, and Rex didn't even run for it. He just turned and walked away, shaking his head, wondering how he could have lost a set against the same kid he had “drubbed” a month before at the Donalda Club.
We were tied at one set each. I sensed I was close to victory. I could feel the Archibald Cross Memorial Cup pulling me like a magnet toward the finish line.
But Rex wasn't about to give up. He might not have cared about the cup. He might not have known or cared about the hidden money. But he cared about his pride. And pride meant a lot to Rex. Maybe he was even mad at me for suckering him into running five miles the night before. When he stepped to the baseline for the first serve of the final set, he sledgehammered the ball into my court so fast I could almost hear it laughing at me as it sped for the sideline and skimmed out of reach.
Game on, Rex
, I thought.
Here's to the last man standing.
I couldn't break Rex on the first game, but I made him work for every point. We reached deuce three times before he put me away with a lucky shot that tipped the net and dribbled over. The next game, I used my serve as a weapon of retaliation. I drew him into long rallies that made him run corner to corner. I lured him into the forecourt at 40-15 and put him away with a sweet passing shot that waved bye-bye as it sailed past him.
By the time the score hit 3-3, Rex was getting sick of being pushed around.
He double-faulted on the opening point, smashing it twice into the net. On the next point, he smashed his first serve into the net and sliced the second serve wide of the court. It was love-30, and I hadn't yet lifted a racket. He flung a tennis ball at the chain-link fence. It seemed to help him calm down, because by the time he retrieved the ball, he'd gotten himself under control. His next serve struck the court inbounds, but it had no sizzle. I reamed it back down the line, where his tired legs couldn't take him. 0-40. Triple break point.
Rex fired a serve to my backhand. I blocked it back, playing it safe. He slammed it crosscourt, but I was waiting for it. I rammed it down the line, making him run to reach it. He fired it back down the line.
Crosscourt was the obvious shot for me now. All match long, I had been sending Rex corner to corner. As the ball came toward me, I watched Rex anticipate my play and commit himself to the crosscourt shot. Then I fired it down the line instead. He pivoted halfway around, but he never had a chance.
Game, Connor.
I was up a break, leading 4-3 in the third and final set.
I held serve on the next game, held on to it with my fingernails, while Rex threw everything he had at me. We beat each other up in baseline rallies. He took me to deuce twice before his ball bit the net and his game bit the dust. Bending over to catch my breath, I silently thanked Sergei and the girls who had taken Rex out partying the night before for wearing him down enough to give me a fighting chance.
I was up 5-3 now, with Rex serving. I needed to break him again to win the cup. He needed to hold me off to stay alive.
His first serve flashed into my service court. I played it safe with a return down the middle, an opening salvo in a baseline rally. But when I looked up from my stroke, I realized that Rex was no longer at the baseline. His red, sweaty face grinned at me from just beyond the net. Too late for me to react, he hit a drop shot and the ball stopped dead in my forecourt.
15-0.
Rex was staking his last stand on the serve and volley.
I stood at the baseline, waiting for his next serve, frantically trying to figure out what to do. He would kill a block shot or anything lightweight heading to center court. My only options were to drill it down the line or pop it up over his head.
The ball came walloping to my backhand, and I opted to drill it down the line. But I drilled it into the net instead. 30-0.
I had to get a grip. I couldn't let the cup slip away, slip into Rex's hands. I couldn't let him psych me out with his rush to the net. No, I told myself. The cup is mine. I can feel it pulling me to the finish. I'm only a few points away.
Rex's next serve came hard and fast. He rushed the net again, but I slipped it past him down the line. 30-15.
I could practically hear him grinding his teeth as he lined up again to serve. He smashed the first one into the net, then rifled off a cautious second serve. This time he stayed at the baseline while I hammered it to his backhand. He whipped it back to mine. Soon we were into a baseline rally. All at once I could feel the long day of tennis dragging me down. I could feel the ache in my shoulders and the burn in my legs. I knew I had to win this game or my chances would dwindle with every additional point I played.
I pummeled him for all I was worth, but Rex wasn't giving up. He hit one deep to the corner that I thought I couldn't reach. I lunged for it anyway, and somehow I got a racket on it. It went looping up high, a crazy moonball, and touched down in the back of beyond, just inside Rex's baseline. The ball took a weird sideways bounce that threw off Rex's timing. He stabbed at it, but his shot barely had enough power to clear the net. I rushed forward and chopped the ball into the forecourt. Rex ran for it, dove, reached it in time to send it up in a soft arc over the net, so soft that it floated to my racket. I hammered it into an empty space in the back corner of his court, so far away that Rex couldn't dream of reaching it. 30-30.
Rex picked himself up and brushed the dirt from the clay court off his shorts. He walked gingerly back to the baseline, as though it hurt to move. I bounced on the spot, kicked up my heels, tried to convince my body to stay limber. I was two points away from the cup.
Rex's serve came in with a vicious spin. It was all I could do to stick a racket out and block it to get the ball into play. Rex was moving forward for the serve and volley. But his slow legs trapped him in no-man's-land, too far from the net for an effective shot. He slapped the ball with an awkward stroke, trying to keep it alive. I scooped it up and aimed it down the line, deep into the corner. Rex turned but couldn't get back in time.
30-40.
Match point.
I walked to the baseline. Flexed my legs in a deep squat. Wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm. Closed my eyes. Breathed. Opened my eyes again.
I couldn't let myself think about what it meant to win this game. It didn't only mean taking home the cup. It didn't only mean pocketing the prize money, if there was any. It meant payback against Rex for all the times he had whupped me. It meant taking down the guy whose dad was plotting to destroy my club. It meant showing the Hunters a kid like me could beat them. That would be sweeter than any silver cup.
The serve came barreling toward me. I parried with a backhand that sent the ball toward center court. I knew an instant later it was the wrong move. With a last burst of adrenaline, Rex leapt toward the net for the serve and volley. Racket outstretched, he zeroed in on the ball's flight path. But the ball, at the last moment, nicked the top of the net. And instead of hitting Rex's racket, it hopped over it and touched ground on the court behind him.
Rex turned. He flailed. The ball was still alive, still on its first bounce. Rex took a whack at it, and it sailed high into the dusk, over the fence that encircled the tennis court. It landed somewhere in the grass, but no one cared where because it was all over now. Rex let his racket fall to the ground. As for me, I fell to my knees on that rough clay court and raised my arms over my head with a cry of victory.
I worked my way through the mass of people on the lawn, through a gauntlet of high fives and slaps on the back, until I stood in front of the table with the gleaming Archibald Cross Memorial Cup. I searched the crowd for a glimpse of Maddy, but I didn't see her anywhere. Was she still in the change room? Had she gone home? Had she seen me win against Rex? Could she even be happy for my victory?
The executor was standing at a microphone. He waited for the noise of the crowd to die down before beginning his speech.
“Ladies and gentlemen! It is my honor and privilege to award the Archibald Cross Memorial Cup to the winner of this tournament, Mr. Connor Trent.”
The crowd applauded as I stepped forward and accepted the cup from the executor's hands. I hoisted it above my head. It felt heavy. Was it heavy enough to contain a bar of solid gold? I slid my fingers around the base, checking for a hidden compartment, but I couldn't feel anything. I lowered the cup and tried not to look like an ungrateful money-grubber as the executor continued his speech.
“The cup is a bequest of the late Archibald Cross, a long-time member of this club and, I know, a personal friend to many of you here today.” The executor paused. The crowd gave a polite round of applause in memory of Mr. Cross. “As per the directions in the late Mr. Cross's will, the winner of the cup is also to be awarded this sealed envelope.”
The crowd fell silent. I felt my stomach prickle. The executor pulled an envelope from an inside pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to me. It was made of heavy, cream-colored paper. On the front was written
To the Winner of the Archibald Cross Memorial Junior Tennis Tournament
. On the back, an old-fashioned red-wax seal held the envelope flap closed.
Suddenly, everyone in the crowd began to talk at once. I heard the words “money” and “prize” and “how much”? I was wondering the same thing myself. But before I could rip open the envelope, the executor put a steady hand on mine and leaned toward me.