My love affair with the U.S. Open began in 1991 during the late hours of a warm August evening in my Bay Area bedroom. Tossing and turning, restless and fidgety, I grabbed the remote and powered on the idiot box, hoping to find something that would lull me to sleep. Scanning the channels, I settled on a tennis match. For a moment I thought it was a replay of the match I had skimmed hours earlier, a boring, monotonous first round slaughter of a has been who should have retired long ago. Then I realized this was no replay, this was the same match in progress, still undecided at two in the morning in New York City.
Three hours earlier, I turned off the television after Jimmy Connors was down two sets to love and was getting crushed in the third, one game away from elimination. At the age of 39, I figured this would be his last match at the Open, a sad ending to an illustrious career. Now I sat wide-eyed and shocked at what was unfolding before my very eyes. Connors somehow had turned back the clock. Father time was put on hold. He managed to rally from the brink of defeat, winning the third and fourth sets. It was deep in the fifth and Connors was serving for the match. While I was away, something happened. Something shifted. Something astonishing took place, no, something incredible. Jimmy Connors, the oldest man in the draw, miraculously overcame every obstacle on a tennis court to win his first round match, beginning his historic march to the semi-finals. Such story lines never seem to develop at Wimbledon. Rarely does something so unreal take place at the French Open. And down under, at the Australian, forget about it. Only in New York. Only at the U.S. Open.
I have always been a spontaneous person by nature. My life seems to be driven by an innate optimistic belief that anything can be accomplished. So it was no different for me on that night in 1991. Connors’s historic comeback energized and inspired me, fueling an all-night excursion of phone calls to secure a flight, a car, and a hotel room. Within hours I was on a pre-dawn flight from San Francisco to La Guardia. Upon arrival, I grabbed my bag, picked up the rental, and headed straight to Flushing Meadows, the site of the Open. Later that evening, I was in a courtside box seat, two rows from the court, watching John McEnroe in the middle of a meltdown, lost in a vituperative rant. Sitting directly in front of me was Bill Murray. Across the aisle were Donald Trump and Marla Maples. And two rows behind me was Alec Baldwin. Only in New York. Only at the U.S. Open.
The U.S. Open is the highest attended annual sporting event in the world. Every year, over 700,000 fans walk through its gates. It's the best venue to see everything and everyone, the best of what tennis has to offer, and in some sense, the best of what life can give. It's a magical experience that everyone should encounter once in his/her life. It's magical for so many reasons. It's in New York City. No city in the world makes you feel more alive. Everything is larger than life--the skyscrapers, the shiny stuff, the lights, the energy. New York causes you to believe in your dreams, in yourself. The city simply inspires you, lifts you, heightens your sense of hope, willing your imaginings into happenings. There is no place in the world that can compare. Host cities of the other Grand Slams – Paris, London, Melbourne – all have their unique charm, cultural ambience and the allure of foreign soil, but in the end, they are not New York City.
New York has given my life some of its fondest memories – memories of adventure and exploit, of faith and risk, and wonderful recollections of love and romance. The Big Apple births this in you, triggering a surge of endorphins, causing you to want to love as deep as you can love, to reach as high as you can reach, pushing you to believe in yourself, in your dreams, in your hopes, calling you to rise above the voices of doubt and critique and mediocrity, enabling you to experience the absolute wonder of being alive. And nowhere is this seen more compellingly and spectacularly than at the U.S. Open.
Tennis mirrors life in so many ways. It uses the language of life. Serve. Fault. Break. Love. Advantage. Approach. Error. Life's lessons are found in every match. Persistence. Focus. Endurance. Overcome. Change. Battle. Recover. There is always something you take with you when you leave the court, both as a player and a spectator. Tennis is the sport in which you talk to yourself. No athletes talk to themselves like tennis players. We rant and yell. We scream and grunt. We whisper and plead with our own psyches in self-talk ramblings. Often we stare at our racquets and have conversations, inquiring of them, looking like lunatics who escaped from some mental ward. Tennis forces you to ask questions, to find answers, and its metaphors carry over into everyday life.
In tennis, it's you against your opponent and you against yourself. Modern tennis is not for the meek. The athleticism, power, and speed push bodies to the brink. Players sprint, stop, twist, swing, torque with unprecedented force and regularity. It's a sport that calls for everything physically, mentally, and emotionally. You must retain your poise and confidence, and silence the malignant sounds of negativity, overcoming swings of emotion from elation to despair. No match is over until the last point. There are no time constraints. The possibility of a comeback is always there. In every scenario, there is always hope. And there is no better place to witness this, to learn life's lessons, to watch life's metaphors be played out than in New York, at the U.S. Open. Every year, some magical story line develops.
Last year's Open gave us a story of enchantment – the magical run of a fairy-tale figure who etched "Believe" in her brightly colored shoes. Only 17 and unknown, Melanie Oudin stunned three of the top ten players in the world as she broke through to the quarterfinals where her thrilling ride ended. Along the way she captured the heart of America, the heart of the tennis world, reminding us again, fairy tales do come true, dreams can be reached, life can be filled with moments of magic, if only we believe.
My most memorable Open was my last one in 2006. It was special for two reasons. First, I had my beautiful family by my side. My three wonderful and amazing daughters attended their first Open. Secondly, it was the last Open for one of my heroes – Andre Agassi – one of the most beloved athletes in history and one of the most gifted men to ever set foot on a tennis court. His career completed a stunning metamorphosis, from non-conformist to elder statesman, from dropout to education advocate, from a career based on image to a career defined by character. And my two oldest daughters and I witnessed his last win as a professional tennis player, a grueling epic battle and punishing struggle, a match for the ages. Little did we know when an aged and injured Agassi – a quasi cripple who needed cortisone injected in his back just so he could move – walked into Arthur Ashe Stadium to face the eighth ranked player in the world, Marcos Baghdatis, that history would be made, that something magical was about to take place at the U.S. Open.
Four hours later, a little past one in the morning, knotted at four-all in the fifth set, the unbelievable was happening in front of our eyes. I glanced at Abby and Shayne. Their eleven-year-old eyes were glued to the blue court as two gladiators traded blows with relentless force and exquisite precision. One was cramping; the other could barely walk. This was more than tennis now; it was a battle of raw wills. Something extraordinary was taking place. The ninth game was unlike anything I have ever seen in all my years at the Open, or in tennis for that matter. Eight deuces later, on the twenty-second point, Agassi won the game and went on to win the match. For almost five hours, the stadium shook with a bouncing rhythm, with gasps and cheers, with chants and roars, with pumping fists and flying sweat and stomping feet. It was an unforgettable moment in sports history. And my girls knew it as they sat there transfixed. Only in New York. Only in Tennis. Only at the U.S. Open.
Everyone's imagination was dazzled by that match, reinforcing one of life's great truths: belief in oneself – authentic, inviolable, and unshakeable belief, not the undercutting kind – is necessary to all human achievement. And the U.S. Open is where you see this truth lived out on a grand scale of enormous proportions, reminding you no matter how bad things get, how low life sinks, you can always rise from the ruins. Agassi's last career win, a colossal comeback, shows us that anything is possible, that life can be filled with magical moments, if only, if only you believe.
* The 2010 U.S. Open can be seen on ESPN and CBS from Aug 30 to Sept 12. Don't miss the magic!
