chapter one

Melbourne Park. Home of the Australian Open tennis tournament. Three main arenas, retractable roofs, commentator boxes, seven indoor courts, eighteen outdoor courts, warm-up areas, change rooms, pro shop, souvenir shops. All the greats have played here. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka…and me?

Okay. So this wasn’t the Australian Open. It was a bronze-level tournament in the Optus Junior Tour. And I wasn’t Victoria Azarenka or ever likely to be. But the only time I’d seen anything remotely like this tennis complex was when I went to the US Open in New York. As a spectator, not a competitor. Now here I was. At Melbourne Park. As a competitor.

I am a self-confessed tennis junkie. I started playing back in Vancouver when I was six. My parents wanted me to play softball, but after I struck out every time at bat for a whole season, they decided maybe I needed a different sport. As soon as they put a tennis racket in my hand, I was hooked. I haven’t looked back since.

Not even when we moved to Sydney, Australia, six months ago. I’d been studying for final exams, training twice a week with Evelyn Ferguson and looking forward to a camping trip with Margie up at Whistler when school let out. Then Dad got a job offer, and everything spun out of control. Instead of mountain biking down Whistler Mountain, I’d landed at Rothmore High, repeating half of grade eleven and getting laughed at every five minutes for things I’d never even known existed. I mean, how was I supposed to know that “The Man from Snowy River” was a poem before it was a movie? Or that ANZAC was an acronym for the Australian and New Zealand armies who fought in WWI? Who knew there was such a thing as Australian rules football? Or that there were two different kinds of rugby?

What I did know, though, was tennis. In Australia, tennis was a year-round sport. And Hugo Mansfield had agreed to coach me and set me up as Miri Tregenza’s doubles partner. So here I was in Melbourne, preparing to compete on the very courts I’d seen so many times on TV. To be honest, it was rather intimidating. Not that we were going to play in the main arenas or anything, but still.

It was the day before the start of the tournament. We’d flown in that morning, and our courts were booked for our final training session. There were four of us—me, Miri, Hugo and his star player, Hamish Brown.

It still felt kind of unreal that I was there at all. Hugo was the best junior coach in Sydney. Even I knew that, and I’d only lived there a few months. He trained a couple of kids at our club, but he didn’t take just anyone. You had to be serious about your tennis, and you had to be good. Scary good. I was under no illusions that I was in that category. I wasn’t Wimbledon material, but I loved the game. It was only good luck on my part that Miri’s doubles partner had injured her shoulder and was out for the rest of the season. Leaving Miri looking for a new partner. Enter stage right, me, Kat McDonald. That was a month ago, and now I had the next few days to prove to Hugo that he hadn’t wasted his time on me.

It was a cold, overcast September afternoon, the beginning of spring, but it felt more like winter. No rain, which was lucky. I guess the rain in Sydney hadn’t reached Melbourne yet. I still wasn’t used to the reversed seasons. September and spring didn’t compute in my mind, but there it was. And despite North Americans’ illusion that Australia is hot all the time, winter in Sydney had been cold. Not cold-cold like Toronto or Calgary, but cold and wet. A bit like Vancouver. It felt good to be out and moving.

I’d had a peek at the other kids as we’d walked through the courts. They all looked awesome, running drills or hitting serve after serve perfectly over the net. Miri and Hamish didn’t seem fazed by it. They’d both been playing the junior circuit for three years. I guess they’d played here at Melbourne Park plenty of times, and besides, they had a couple of days before the main tournament started. For me, qualifying rounds started the next day. I was a bundle of nerves.

Hamish popped the ball over to Hugo and we started a rally. This was the first time I’d been on the court with Hamish. He had an awesome backhand. It never seemed to miss. And he was almost unbeatable at the net. His reach was so long, he got to the tramlines with a single step. He’d made it to the quarterfinals in the Australian Open Juniors last year, and I could see why.

I, on the other hand, was a total disaster. I messed up the first two shots. Easy forehands that flew long when I wasn’t even trying to send the ball deep.

Miri threw her hands up in disgust. I think I was fulfilling her worst nightmare. She had never wanted me for a partner in the first place. The first time we trained together, she eyed me like a piece of rotten fish. But beggars can’t be choosers, and she was stuck with me for the duration of the tournament.

Not that she didn’t have reason to be frustrated. Miri Tregenza was like a shadow image of Maria Sharapova, tall and slim but with jet-black hair and olive skin that never turned bright red after a match like mine did. She played like Sharapova, too, minus the screeching. Hard-hitting and aggressive, she never let an opportunity slip by. She was one of the top seeds for the tournament—I think she was ranked number two to win. I knew she thought I was going to bring her down.

“Come on, Kat, concentrate,” Hugo said.

I tried to block everything out. Concentrate on the ball. Miri lobbed one onto my forehand and I shuffled into position. Backswing, follow through. The ball slammed onto my racket and arced perfectly over the net. Okay, now we were in business.

We rallied back and forth. A couple of shots went wild, but I tried not to let it get to me. I just concentrated on the next one. Topspin forehand. Shuffle back to center. Backhand slice. Move into the net and volley. Lob. Overhead smash. After awhile my brain switched off and my body took over, moving instinctively, anticipating the next shot. I felt good. Light, quick, powerful.

Before I knew it, Hugo called time.

“All right,” he said. “You’re ready. Get your stuff and we’ll head to the hotel.”