Love Game

Kai

Darrin Cahill: Welcome back to the final match of the Brisbane International Tennis Tournament where Sikai Solomon, our hot-headed, show-boating Australian, is battling against his number one rival, Bradley Finn, of the United States.

John McEnroe: You’re right about that rivalry. Brad typically gets under Kai’s skin more than any other player. But right now, Kai has the crowd in the palm of his hand, doing trick shots, and joking with the spectators.

Cahill: Indeed. Kai’s unusual style of play has been on full display throughout this tournament. But no smashed rackets. Yet.

McEnroe: As a former racket-smasher myself, I understand the frustration and pressure, but I’d like to see Kai take his career seriously. He’s got talent beyond measure, but he doesn’t bother training, doesn’t have a coach…

Cahill: And his short fuse comes with a price tag.

McEnroe: Most Fined Player on Tour doesn’t have the same ring to it as Grand Slam Winner.

Cahill: Right you are, John. But on the other hand, no one puts on a more entertaining show in tennis, as evidenced by this sold-out crowd here in Brisbane. And now the break is over, and we return to the action where Kai is up one set to none in this best-of-three match. Let’s see if he can keep his cool and pull out a win here. If he does, it’ll be a great portent of things to come, two weeks from now at the Australian Open.

One set down, one to go, I thought and flashed a winning smile at a bunch of kids—tennis hopefuls—in the stands. The commentators like to paint me as a volatile arse who didn’t give a shit about anything. But I loved the kids. I loved how purely they loved the game. Maybe it’s because I had been like that. Once.

The kids waved enthusiastically, all smiles and excited faces, and my chest swelled.

Do it for them. Do it for the crowd.

I’d been giving the crowd—my crowd—a good show. We had a love-hate relationship, my fans and I. They loved my no-look shots and ’tweeners. My so-called meltdowns…?

Not so much.

But today was a good day. Brad Finn might’ve had the world fooled into thinking he was a gentleman of tennis, but I knew his true colors. He was a racist prick with a fake smile and a weak backhand. Beating his arse for the championship at Brisbane was going to be the perfect end to this tournament. Because meltdowns aside, when I wanted to win, I won.

And today I wanted to win.

As Brad and I passed each other on the changeover, he put on his winning smile and uttered between his teeth, “Not bad for a half-breed.”

My mum was Australian; my father, Samoan. That made me the only Samoan-Australian on the Tour, a fact Brad liked to remind me of, often. Except Dad wasn’t Samoan anymore. Dad wasn’t anything anymore. Only ash in an urn on Mum’s mantlepiece. Nothing left of him but his Samoan blood in my veins, his dark skin on my bones, and his love of tennis ingrained in my DNA.

Brad’s words unleashed the old pain. It gripped my heart, erasing the warmth, the good feelings, the kids’ smiles… All of it. Too much. It threatened to undo me, and I couldn’t let that happen. Ever. Like some sort of internal combustion, I lit the grief on fire and ignited my blood. I gripped my racket until my knuckles turned white in an effort not to whack Brad in his face.

“Are you hearing this shit?” I demanded of the chair umpire, perched high in his seat that overlooked the court.

“I beg your pardon?” the ump asked. He was a stiff-looking, older man with a white mustache, wearing a blue blazer with gold buttons.

“Aye, blind and deaf, ya daft old prick,” I muttered and flounced onto my bench.

The ump leaned into his mic and told the sold-out crowd, “Code violation, Mr. Solomon. Verbal abuse of umpire.”

The crowd booed, and I felt their energy tense up, ready to flip from the love part of our love/hate relationship to the hate.

“Oh, that you heard?” I sneered at the ump. “Bloody fucking ridiculous.”

The ump leaned placidly into the mic. “Second code violation: audible obscenity. Point penalty, Mr. Solomon. The score is now 15-love.”

The crowd was muttering now, the low rumble peppered with a few boos. The cameras were up in my face while Brad Finn was back on the court, aiming a smug smile at the hardtop and readying to serve a game he was winning before it even had begun. Every spectator’s face seemed to suddenly wear Dad’s disapproving frown.

No, I can do this. Keep my shit together. For him.

I grasped my racket handle tighter, sweat dripping between my shoulder blades; Brisbane was a furnace in January. Brad took his damn time to serve, bouncing the ball again and again, almost running out the serve clock because he knew it irritated me. I didn’t need time to prepare a serve. I walked to the baseline, tossed the ball, slammed it home. I’d logged ten aces to Finn’s none in the first match alone.

Because I was better than Brad Finn and he knew it.

I read his body language. I knew where the serve was coming before he did. When he finally tossed the ball and slammed it to my right, I was already there. I blasted it back, then charged the net.

Finn whacked a forehand.

I returned to the back corner.

There was no chance for him to get there in time; the ball hit right where I wanted it. I pumped my fist.

“Out!” one of the line judges called.

I stopped; my arm dropped. “What? My arse, that was out.”

The chair ump gave me a stiff look. “Are you challenging the call?”

“What do you think? Yes, I’m challenging the bloody call. That line judge has been a mess all match.”

He went back to the mic. “Mr. Solomon is challenging. The ball was called out.”

As per tradition, the crowd began to clap in unison—clap clap clap—while the replay monitor tracked my shot on the big screen and then zoomed in on the spot where th

e ball touched down. A hair’s breadth separated the shadow of the ball’s landing from the white line. Had it only touched the line, it would have been in.

“The ball is out,” the umpire said. “30-love. Mr. Solomon has two challenges remaining.”

The mostly Australian crowd—my crowd, remember—cheered the call. They’d abandoned me already. Fuck them. I knew what they said about me—I was on Twitter, after all.

A constant disappointment.

Never lives up to his talent.

Too hot-headed and unconventional for tennis.

They could piss off. What was the point? To make some money, sure, but so what? Despite being fined every other minute by the stuffy pricks at the ATP, I’d made plenty of money. That didn’t change the fact that my father wasn’t here to see me. To be proud of me. Life had taken him early and taken nearly all of my love of tennis—our game—with him, leaving me only the scraps.

“Anger only defeats one person, and it’s never your opponent,” his advice whispered in my mind.

Sorry, Dad. I tried. But it was too late. Anger was better than pain. Always.

Here’s some Twitter fodder, ya bloody plebs.

“Fuck. This. Bullshit,” I said, plenty loud enough for the ump to hear.