Two days before the U16 championships, my mom broke the news that she couldn’t drive me to Toronto. Her fight to save the Tree wasn’t going well, so she was ramping up her plan of action. She was going to hold a sit-in.
When I got up at 5:00 am Friday to catch the 6:00 am Greyhound, the only sign of Mom was a note on the kitchen table wishing me good luck beside a brown-bag breakfast of muffins and fruit. I guzzled some oj, mowed down a couple of muffins and headed for the bus station.
The street was empty except for the squirrels—until I came to the big corner lot where the Tree stood. There, sitting in a fork of the massive trunk, was my mother. She was wearing a navy-blue tracksuit, drinking tea from a thermos and reading a report titled “Guidelines for Planning Sustainable Neighborhoods.”
“Good luck, Connor!” Mom waved.
“Thanks, Mom,” I muttered.
At least I’d be getting out of town before the entire street woke up and discovered my mother perched in the Tree like the Lorax, except less cute and fuzzy.
I got off the Greyhound in suburban Toronto and took a city bus to the Ontario Racquet Club. It was a far cry from the Donalda. The club had about the same level of elegance as your average Walmart store. But what it lacked in ritziness, it made up for in size. The echoing concrete hallways stretched for miles, branching off into massive gyms where rows of sweaty people worked out on exercise machines. Outside, acres of tennis courts lay splayed under the baking sun.
I played my first elimination round on Friday afternoon. It was a tough match that went to three sets and left me dripping with sweat and tasting salt every time I licked my lips. I beat my opponent, though, and then I checked the board to see which player I would face in the second elimination round, on Saturday morning.
The name I saw made me burn.
It was Mike Baron.
Mike had a fighting look in his eye and a cocky sneer on his lips when I met him in the locker room the next morning before our match.
“You trashed my club. I’m gonna trash you,” I said.
“Fat chance, loser,” Mike snarled back.
Out on the court, Mike played my style of tennis. He hit big, hard serves and power strokes from the baseline. He was a tough kid, full of grit and anger.
We played long, grinding rallies, driving the ball at each other full-force, grunting like animals, with the sweat flying off our faces and the hot, smoggy air burning our lungs. It was hand-to-hand combat, down in the trenches, fighting for every inch of ground. When we came up for air, we were tied 6-6 in the first set. Neither of us had broken the other’s serve. Neither was anywhere near conceding defeat.
We traded points in a grueling tiebreaker, then Mike took the lead at 12-11, with my turn to serve. I went on the attack with a monster serve that should have left Mike reeling, but he stuck out his racket for a block shot and put the ball in play. Another jaw-clenching rally followed.
With every hit, I imagined ramming the ball down Mike’s throat. We stayed deadlocked for eight hits, ten hits, twelve hits, until finally he powered it past me for the point and won the tiebreaker 13-11.
We both knew it could have gone either way. We both knew that we would grind each other into the ground before one of us came out victorious.
The next set was a replay of the first, except this time I came out on top, half through luck and half through stubborn bloody-mindedness. Now we stood tied at one set apiece. On the break before the third set, I sat in my courtside chair, guzzling water, feeling the burning in my lungs and my legs and wondering how I would dig deep enough to win the final bout against Mike.
Then someone called my name. I looked around and saw Maddy’s face pressed up against the fence.
“Let’s go, Connor!” she shouted.
The sight of her sent a jolt of energy through my body. What was she doing here? What was she doing watching me? Wasn’t Rex playing an elimination match on some other court? Wouldn’t she rather be watching him, the winner of the Donalda tournament, the top-ranked junior in the province?
I waved at Maddy, then jerked my thumb across the net toward Mike. Earlier in the week, I’d filled her in on my suspicions about him.
She nodded. “Cream him, Connor! Take him down!”
Take him down. Yeah, I’d take him down, for Maddy’s sake and to get justice for what he’d done to my club.
I opened the final set with a screaming serve. Then I followed up with a series of punishing forehands that Mike beat back with grim aggression. On and on we fought as the scorching sun inched toward its high point in the noonday sky. I felt the burning in my skin, muscles, throat and lungs. Every point was a battle, and we held each other in a death grip, each of us straining to bring the other down. In between points, I looked at Maddy, her fingers gripping the chain-link fence, and energy surged through me again.
At last we were tied at four games apiece on the final set. Mike was serving. The score stood at deuce when Mike double-faulted, giving me the advantage. Break point. It was my chance to pull ahead.
Mike served. I blocked it back. He hit a whopper to my backhand. I returned it crosscourt. He blasted it to my backhand. I slammed it down the line. This wouldn’t be just another brutal baseline rally, I decided. This time, I was watching for an opportunity to surprise him. We exchanged blows twice more, and then I blasted the ball crosscourt to the corner. Mike reached it, but just barely. Here was my chance. I rushed the net. The ball soared toward me. I gave it a touch of underspin and dropped it dead into Mike’s forecourt. He pivoted, lunged, but he was too far away to reach it. The ball dribbled away, so soft and yet so deadly. Game, Connor.
Maddy whistled. Mike slammed his racket on the ground. It was 5-4, and I was up a break. All I had to do now was hold serve to take the match.
I faulted on my first serve out of sheer nervousness but whipped a hard second serve to Mike’s backhand. He hammered it back, hard and deep. Another baseline rally began. But things had changed. I had shown him I was willing to take a risk. I had a feeling he might be willing to take a risk too.
I tried to keep him back at the baseline, but I could see he was trying to come up. He was cheating a few steps forward, looking for his chance to rush the net. Finally, he did. He tried a drop volley like I had played on him, but he couldn’t finesse it. He got too much power on the shot, and it landed midcourt. I scooped it up and sent it to an unprotected back corner. 15-0. Mike was seeing blood.
I sent a monster serve caroming at him, and he hit it back, out of bounds. Maddy let out a holler like a wild jungle girl. 30-0. Mike took the next point on a jet-powered return. I took the next one with an ace up the middle. 40-15. Match point.
At the baseline, I took a deep breath and gave the ball a few bounces, getting ready to serve. I watched it hit the ground next to the tip of my white tennis sneaker. I felt the sun blaze on the back of my neck. Blood pounded in my ears. I tossed the ball with my left hand and swung my right in a synchronized arc. My racket hit the ball at the top of the arc. I felt my arm come sweeping down on the follow-through. I saw Mike moving to block it. I knew the return was coming crosscourt. I felt my legs moving to the spot. I heard the perfect thwack of the ball. I felt it hitting my racket on the sweet spot. I saw it speeding down the line, and I saw Mike running for it. I saw his return come sailing at me, and I knew my next shot would go crosscourt to the opposite corner. I hit it there with the precision of a hawk striking its prey, and I was ready for Mike’s return. But it never came. Mike never reached the ball.
Game, set, match. Somehow I staggered through the motions of a handshake. Somehow I stumbled off the court and into the arms of Maddy, who hugged me around the neck, laughing and jumping up and down. I held her tightly around her slim waist, thinking I had walked into a miracle— the miracle of beating Mike, the miracle of holding this girl in my arms.
I only needed one more miracle today— the miracle of a win in the quarterfinals against Rex Hunter.