Tumbling Down

I jogged back and forth on the balls of my feet jumping from one side of the baseline to the other. I needed to get my feet moving, I needed to get my mind thinking. There is a term, familiar to us tennis players and for many other athletes. It is called ‘the zone’, in other sports I’ve also heard it being called ‘white line fever’ in soccer. It’s a mental state where you can’t hear a thing; you can’t feel a thing, all that matters in the ball. You would play every shot to perfection. When you were in the zone, you were invincible.

I could hear the hum of the crowd as the stadium began to fill. I looked up, all the way to the back row people were taking their seats, they’ve come here to see a win and I wasn’t going to let them down. After Brendon’s “match” today he had scored two free tickets in the “Presidential Row”. As the name indicates the Presidential Row is where the President and his representatives sit when they come to see a match. They are the best seats in the house. However, because this was nothing more than a first round match no one of any significance was in attendance hence the reason why Brendon was sitting there.

I could here his voice, buzzing like a thousand beehives behind me, he had been here for half an hour and all I wanted from him was to leave. Don’t get me wrong, he was a nice guy but he also very annoying, very quickly.

****

We were half way through the match I, one set up however three love down in the second set. My knee was feeling tight, rigid like there was something attached which was restraining my movement. The momentum was with my opponent, when this happened you have two choices; first, you try to wait it out and hope for things to turn back in your favour or, attack attack attack until you battle your way through it. I always chose the latter.

I side stepped out, sliding to the out wide forehand and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground. My knee has seized up, completely; it was burning, on fire then it was aching, cold. I tried to stand up; balancing on my left leg began to slowly lower my right leg to the ground. I tried to walk and then I was on the ground again. The trouble with tennis was that you were out there on your own, there was no one to pick you up when you were down.

In end I had to forfeit, it’s hard to keep playing when you can barely walk. I tried thinking back, even to my junior days and I could not once remember forfeiting a match ever in my life. I could never remember feeling the way I did when I hobbled of court, being supported by officials as I made my way down the race.

Knee injuries were usually career ending.

“I told you something was wrong” I screamed at Matt when he appeared in the locker room.

“Here” he said passing me a beer “drink”

“Fuck off! I told you I wasn’t sure about it, you knew I was in pain, why did you make me go out there?”

“Please Brooke, do you really think that I would have made you go out there if I thought this
was going to happen?” he sighed.

“I told you something was wrong!”

“And since when were you a fucking physio huh?” he shouted “stop fucking shifting the blame on me and accept the fact that your body fucked up! There’s nothing you or I could’ve done, it was the way it fucking worked out, no coaching no nothing would have stopped this from happening.”

“If I didn’t play thi-”

“If you didn’t play this match you would have hurt it in the next. You have press in a half hour.”

I had no idea what to do with myself, how I was going to pass the time, what would I spend my days doing. I was fitted with my crutches and realised that it would be a struggle to a long climb the stair into the car waiting for me later on. The press lounge was full to a capacity which I had never seen myself, of course, it was America’s Great Hope after the William’s sisters retire. If this injury is bad enough, I’ll be out before one of the two wins their next Wimbledon Title.

“Miss Anderson” the first reporter spoke up “How are you feeling?”

I raised my eyebrows furiously, I knew I was going to make the news tomorrow for all the wrong reasons “How do you think I’m feeling? I feel absolutely shit. I had a chance to win this and I get injured, I hate injuries, never had one, never wanted one, its bullshit.”

“Yes, but other athletes have come back from injuries to be just as good a-”

“To be honest” I snapped “I don’t really give a fuck about other athletes, this is about me right now and not them. Well done to them, getting back to the way they were but right now, I’m injured and I don’t want to sit around, and have people sit around and compare my recovery progress to others. What? Am I going to mark it off on a calendar ‘oh gosh, Kim Clijsters came back today, oh gosh, Marat Safin tomorrow!’ Get serious people! If I sit around comparing myself to others well then I’m going to kill myself if I fail to meet their deadlines. I sighed again glancing down at my watch “Surely you’ve all got enough to put together an article, this press conference is over.”