On the Line (30 page)

So what did I do? I called for a trainer. I told the umpire I was about to cramp, and asked for a trainer on the next changeover.
I thought I could certainly make it through the next couple games, but now I had to play with a certain urgency—to put the
game away before I started to spasm. I set it up in my head like a race against my own body, and as soon as I started to think
in this way I wanted that last game back, because it would have put me in position to take the second set and end the match
quickly.

The sense-of-urgency thing worked, because I came out like a demon. I hit this great backhand passing shot down the alley
for the first point of my next service game, and it was such a killer shot I gave myself a little fist pump at the end of
it, together with one of my trademark rallying cries: “Come on!”

I was so fired up!

It ended up another love service game, and on Daniela’s serve I really started to push her around. At 0–15, I made a strong
return on a second serve to go up 0–30, and I followed that with a big point at net to go up three break points, but I finished
her off on the very next point and put us back on serve.

The trainer met me at the changeover, and I told her I felt a spasm coming on. I was concerned, but I wasn’t frantic with
worry or anything. It was just something to deal with, a trouble spot to get past. We talked for a bit, but there really wasn’t
anything she could do for me. I asked for some salt tablets, not fully realizing that nobody really believed in salt tablets
anymore as a way to guard against cramping, but it was such an unusual spot because it had hardly ever happened to me, so
I didn’t really know the first thing about how to treat it. Together, we decided that the thing to do was for me to keep playing,
and to hope that I could somehow hold off the cramps until the match was over and I could massage the area and get proper
treatment. So I came out with the same hurry-up mind-set as before, thinking I’d do well to push ahead. That meant another
love service game, to bring us to 5–5 in the second set, and here I started to think,
Okay, Serena. Break her here and you can serve for the match.

That was the plan—but it didn’t exactly work out that way.

T
he wind seemed to pick up as Daniela started to serve. She actually made a bad toss or two because of the ripping winds, and
right after the third point of the game, with Daniela up 30–15, I started to spasm. I took a wrong step in just the wrong
way at just the wrong moment, and I knotted up like you wouldn’t believe. The first thing I did was bang the back of my calf
a few times with my racquet, thinking this would help, but the next thing I knew I was down on that grass court, writhing
and grimacing and screaming in pain.

Oh, I was in such agony!

I don’t remember too much after that, but the trainer came out, and the umpire, and maybe another few people. Again, if you’ve
ever experienced one of these spasms, you’ll know what it’s like—I wouldn’t wish it on anybody! The pain was so excruciating,
so intense, and underneath you start to think there’s something you should be able to do to get some immediate relief, except
of course there’s nothing to do but ride it out and stretch it out and work it through with some deep massage. That, and time—only
when you’re in the middle of a match at Wimbledon you don’t really have any time.

The way it works is, once the trainer makes an assessment of your injury you have three minutes to treat it before you have
to resume play. Three minutes! That’s nothing, but those are the rules on the tour. They’re pretty clear-cut. If you’re not
ready to go after three minutes, you’re done. It used to be that if the trainer even touched you during the run of play, without
a proper time-out being granted by the officials, they could disqualify you just for that, but now they had this three-minute
rule in place. I think I probably knew the rule at the time, but I wasn’t exactly aware of it. All I could really think about
was getting that spasm to pass. I wasn’t even thinking about the match. The trainer was working on me by this point, so the
clock was ticking. The good news was I started to feel a little relief. Not a lot, but some. I could stretch and lean a certain
way and the pain would be manageable.

Just then, this giant storm cloud appeared over the stadium, and I realized that the only way I could get through this match
was with another rain delay. Then I could get a proper massage, and take the time I needed for the spasm to fully pass, and
even though the muscle would be sore and tender I could probably play on it. The longer the delay, the more time I’d have
to recover, so as I was lying there I started praying for rain. Buckets and buckets of rain. I never like to pray to my God,
Jehovah, for mundane-type things, like a competitive edge in a tennis match or a sudden rainstorm to put me back in the game.
At least, I don’t like to pray this way
for real
. But here I prayed in a wishing kind of way. I prayed and prayed. I wished and wished.

It would be storybook and fairy-tale to be able to write that the clouds burst at just that moment, and that the rains washed
over me in sweet relief because I knew the match would now be suspended, but that’s not exactly what happened. What happened,
exactly, was nothing. The skies darkened, but that was about it, and when my three minutes were up the trainers and officials
cleared the court and left me standing behind the baseline. I felt like a wounded warrior out there. I couldn’t move. I could
barely put pressure on my left foot.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone, so vulnerable.

Mercifully, I had the crowd behind me. My parents were standing in the players’ box. Venus was there, too. Everyone was trying
to be so supportive, so encouraging. Even Daniela Hantuchova, to her great credit, came over while I was down and struggling
and wanted to let me know she was pulling for me. (I thought that was
really
nice of her!) All of that helped, but it was one of those times where nothing could have
really
helped. It was an impossible moment.

You know, it’s funny, but all during that injury time-out it never once occurred to me to forfeit the match. It’s not that
I was trying to be tough, or that I was so determined to play through this agonizing pain. It’s just that I didn’t give quitting
a thought. It wasn’t an option, perhaps because when I step out on that court for a match I’m conditioned to stay there until
the match is done. Win or lose, I mean to see it through, and that was my attitude here. Shutting it down just wasn’t something
I thought about, at just that moment. Not because I was particularly brave, or because I had any kind of superhuman ability
to play through pain, but because it’s what you do. You play on.

And so I played on. I stood in there while Daniela served out the game. I couldn’t even move toward her next serve, which
I guess went down as an ace, and at 40–15 she must have taken pity on me because she served it right at me, and all I could
do was swat at the ball and watch it float weakly to the net.

I hobbled to the chair on the changeover and here the trainer was allowed to work on me briefly—as long as she did so in the
time normally allotted on a change. Here, it was just enough time for another quick massage, and for her to wrap my calf with
prewrap and tape; heck, she was barely done with her tape job when the umpire was motioning for me to hurry up and take my
position, so they don’t really cut you
any
slack.

Tour rules are pretty specific about this. After those initial three minutes of treatment, you’re allowed two additional treatments
for the same injury, as long as those treatments occur during a changeover. If there’s a subsequent, unrelated injury, you
can start the process over again, but for this one spasm I could get only one more visit from the trainer after this one.

I shuffled back out to the court thinking,
Serena, what are you going to do?
Again, quitting wasn’t even an option, so it was just about sucking it up and playing on—only I knew I couldn’t push off
on my left leg with any kind of authority, so I wondered how I would even serve. Then, as I got into position, I felt a raindrop.
Just one drop. And then another. I thought,
Come on, rain! Please, please, please!

But the rain held off and sure enough, down 5–6, my first serve had absolutely nothing on it—although by some miracle Daniela
returned it long, so I was up 15–0. Then I double-faulted into the ad court, but looking back I believe these two missed serves
helped me figure a way to compensate and shift my weight so that I could get at least a little power on my serve. The adjustment
allowed me to surprise Daniela on the next point with a big serve that she probably wasn’t expecting, putting me up 30–15,
and after that I took the next point, too, with a silly little drop-shot winner. I figured since I couldn’t move, I’d use
some touch to put a quick end to the point—and it worked!

Next, I hit another ball weakly into the net, so at 40–30 I thought another big serve might catch Daniela off guard. At the
same time, I had a conflicting thought: I realized there was just no way I could expect to win a tiebreaker, so it occurred
to me that maybe a better strategy would be to give up this game for lost and head directly to the third set. Then I thought
maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, either. Maybe the tiebreaker would stretch the clock in my favor, and even if I had no
chance to win it would give the muscle more time to heal, and it might even give the weather more chance to do its thing and
start raining.

There were all these thoughts rattling around in my head, at a time when I really wasn’t thinking clearly to begin with, so
I just set them all aside and went for it. I limped to the line and unleashed my eighth ace of the match, putting us at 6–6
in games and headed for that tiebreaker.

I thought,
Okay, Serena. That settles that. It’s not in you to even
try
to lose a game, even if it might be your only shot at winning the match.

Predictably, I dug myself a quick hole, giving away the first three points of the tiebreaker on two unforced errors and a
double fault, and with Daniela serving up 3–0 I started to think I was doomed. By this point, the spasm had nearly dissipated,
but my left calf was still ridiculously tender and sore. (Man, it hurts just writing about it!) I was still in a kind of midlevel
agony. Most significant, I couldn’t push off on my left leg, and I certainly couldn’t run.

Down 0–4 in the tiebreaker, I got a bit lucky. I caught the net on a weak return of serve, and the ball deflected off in a
funny way to give me the point. Then, with the serve back on my racquet, I answered Daniela’s return with an odd little slice
that she misjudged and hit wide.

Now I was down 2–4, and it was time for a much bigger break: rain. Finally. And not just a drop or a drizzle but a real downpour.
The buckets and buckets I’d been praying for. I closed my eyes and tilted my head toward the sky, and for the first time since
I went down with that spasm I saw a way through. I thought,
Somebody up there likes me.

At just that moment, the rain seemed heaven-sent. I could have cried. In fact, I did—only they were tears of anguish mixed
up with tears of relief.

I got the treatment I needed during the delay, and I gradually began to feel better, but it would be days before I could work
those muscles like they were at full strength. I still couldn’t move all that well, but at least I could move, and I knew
that as I warmed up and started playing again I might move even better. Time was now my not-so-secret weapon. Before, when
I first went down, the clock was against me, but now I knew the longer it ticked the better off I’d be. I knew that every
additional minute would be precious to me and my recovery, and all during our five-minute warm-up—our fourth of the day—I
worried how my body would respond once I really had to test it, if I’d gathered enough of those precious minutes to allow
me to play at close to full strength.

I ended up losing that second-set tiebreaker—I’d dug myself too deep a hole!—but that long delay put me back in the match.
We started the third set on my serve, and I was tentative at the outset. I gave away the first two points because I didn’t
fully trust my left leg just yet, but then I made a few adjustments and launched my fastest serve of the match for an ace.
I followed that with another ace (on a second serve!), to bring the game to 30–30, and then I took the next two points behind
two more big serves.

Daniela could see I couldn’t cover the court that well, and of course she looked to take advantage. I would have done the
same thing. This was a competition, after all. Running at anything close to full speed just wasn’t about to happen for me,
so Daniela moved me around a bit in this game and won it easily. She moved me around so much, I fell on my thumb! I tried
to shake it off, but it started to bother me more and more as the match went on. I nearly gave Daniela a break in my next
service game, missing an easy overhead and hitting another ball into the net. At one point, at 40–30, I thought I had the
game won with an apparent ace, but as I started my triumphant walk-off to the chair Daniela signaled for a challenge, and
the call was overturned. I’ll tell you, it really knocked the air out of me to lose a close call like that, and I ended up
double-faulting and letting the game slip to deuce. I was so mad at myself I slammed my racquet to the court in disgust, but
then I took the next two points to hold serve.

From there we took turns holding, but in the back-and-forth I got a little stronger, a little more sure of myself on my feet.
Those precious minutes started to pile up. I was moving better and better with each point, and whatever edge Daniela Hantuchova
might have had after my injury had by now pretty much fallen away. If anything, it had tilted back to me, simply because she
hadn’t taken full advantage of the opening she’d received, and now that it was closing up on her it seemed she was chasing
it, and chasing it, and finding it more and more out of reach.