Excess vs. moderation
Head-to-head: unclear
A week before I reached the second week of a major tournament for the first time, I got so drunk I puked on my laptop. This is not something I am proud of (I totally am) but it is something that happened. I was in New Haven, that God-forsaken town in Connecticut, and I had just lost my 4th first round match in a row. This was a bad stretch for me. I had entered the Top 50 for the first time earlier that year. I had tasted the moody juices of power and success and I wanted more of it. So, ever the perfectionist, ever the logical thinker, I read everything there was about successful athletes and I tried to implement it all at once.
I changed my diet and my sleep patterns, I warmed up and cooled down before and after practice sessions for an hour and I didn’t leave the practice courts or the gym until my body wouldn’t go any further. Doing all of this wasn’t necessarily wrong but it was too much. And it came entirely from the left side of my brain, the logical, rational part, the one that analyses rather than feels.
The reason why I have never fallen out of love with tennis is because it’s the perfect analogy for life. On the court as in life, doing things right is not automatically what brings success. It might eventually put you on a consistent trajectory of accomplishment but humans are built of tears and feelings, of annoyances and grievances, of weird vengeful quests against nobody in particular and love and desire. If you can fuel that, it can be more powerful than having never made a single bad choice in your life. Where real magic is created is in the balance of both.
You can’t drink and smoke and not train and expect to excel on the court. And you might diet well and train better and sleep the best and fail. If you can somehow manage to find balance you will be the best version of yourself you can be. On the court and in life. The question, however, is: What is the right balance? And where the hell do I buy it and how much does it cost?
I had become too rigid in my pursue of perfection and the consequence was that I couldn’t win a match anymore. A night out at a Cuban bar in New Haven, a couple of drinks (it doesn’t take much more than that to have me vomit my guts out) and a timely escape from an Italian gentleman with blond locks named either Fabio or Fabrizio (not a tennis player), memory’s blurry unfortunately, was all it took to snap me back into place. A week later, I beat Nadia Petrova in the first round of the US Open on Louis Armstrong stadium and another week later I played on Arthur Ashe stadium for the first time and got a well-deserved beating from Vera Zvonareva.
I’m the first to admit that it was a risky endeavour and it could’ve gone horribly wrong. But I also remember the moment I lay in the bathtub after having destroyed my computer with - by the looks of it - Caprese salad from earlier that evening. I felt free for the first time in months. Free from the rigid schedule I had made up for myself, free from the stress of eating healthy at all times in the US circa 2010. I had already messed up royally, it didn’t matter what I had for breakfast the morning after as long as I could escape Fabio (or Fabrizio, it’s unclear).
As much as it had hurt me to retire from tennis, to leave behind that coveted identity of a professional athlete, the day after my last match at the US Open was a day of ultimate freedom. My body was no longer a temple, no longer a tool, it was merely a thing I needed to hang out with my friends by the beach and have a beer before noon.
One of the more astonishing things I have witnessed come along in recent times is the current societal obsession with longevity. While living healthier and longer is a commendable goal, we have all heard of those people who take it to an extreme. Who take a thousand pills and workout excessively, for whom 10.000 steps are a letdown and a french frie is a sin. They live their lives more rigorously than professional athletes when the only thing an athlete looks forward to in retirement is the freedom of choice.
Being healthy and young has become a token of success. It’s no longer the Porsche you buy after you sell your first house or make your first million dollars, it’s the state of your health that indicates accomplishment. You see how problematic this notion becomes when you turn it on its head. If being healthy means being successful, does being sick make you a failure?
To be clear, I’m not advocating for people to get drunk every day and eat Skittles for lunch. I just think the art of living well is striking a balance. A balance between pleasure and duty, spirit and mind. If lately you’ve lived too rigidly how about a glass of wine that will give you a blinding headache? And if you’ve been having too much fun and feel empty the next day a sense of duty might do the trick.
Finding the right balance is a perpetual quest. On the court. And off.
Things that make me happy:
A few days ago, I watched the movie Saturday Night which brought up the idea for this week’s newsletter. It’s a movie about the first ever broadcasting of Saturday Night Live and the challenges that came with it. One of the challenges is the insane cast of characters that just seem to be doing whatever they feel like doing in that particular moment at all times. It’s the 70s and authority doesn’t quite have the same ring to it it once held. While everyone’s definitely over the top, it is part of the reason they made groundbreaking TV. I wondered where this type of energy has gone and whether it’s a good energy to have. It has brought forth this newsletter.
Things that make me unhappy:
I like to think of myself as an experimental person when it comes to snacks. I picked up 5 new ones yesterday trying to implement the 70s SNL spirit and they all, without a single exception, were complete flops. From the drinks to the food items, one worse than the next. I cried silent tears into my garlic noodles and scallion pancakes from the Chinese Dim Sum shop on the corner of my street where I know the food is always good.
I hope this finds you well and rested and ready for the weekend. If this newsletter inspires you to go a little wild, I take full responsibility and will personally send you magnesium tablets for the hangover it might bring on. Until then I remain…
Yours truly, Andrea
I love this Substack. Any chance your book will be published in English? I’d really like to read it.
Excellent as always thank you for sharing your experience with the world. As for puking on your laptop hell I’m proud of ya 😂