One Hundred Years of Solitude

...and miserable happiness, too

Being a tennis player can be a lonely endeavour.

When I look back on my career it’s not the triumphs I think of. Not the crowds and noise. Not the fancy lights and cameras.

It’s the dingy dive bar on a Tuesday night when you failed in your first round match on the hunt for food and relief. It’s the 3am-I’m-Wide-Awake-It’s-Morning jet lag. It’s the dry air on an airplane that drives you insane. The empty locker rooms when you make the final. The shower after you lost, the warm water the only pleasant feeling on your body. The car rides and bus rides, the trains and taxis, the planes and ships (yes, ships!).

It’s the chain hotels. The Marriotts and Hyatts. All with the same beige-brown decor, not offending anybody. The same melange of fruit in a fruit salad, the same toasts, the same coffee machines.

breakfast for one

All of it is what makes up 80 percent of a tennis player’s life. The more success you muster, the more luxurious the hotels become but the essence remains the same. Home is where I lay my hat. And when it’s time to go I take my hat with me to the next place where I may lay it down again.

This type of life may seem like an A24 horror film to some. I’ve seen plenty of tennis players fall by the wayside not for lack of talent but for a sheer disdain for travel. To others, myself included, it’s what dreams are made of. The solitude that comes with it, stitched into the seems of the fabric, invisible, sown by a master, is merely a side effect.

There’s a difference between solitude and loneliness. Solitude has a romantic ring to it, a whiff of nostalgia, an old man drinking whisky at a bar, Tom Waits playing on the jukebox. Loneliness on the other hand - not so fun. Solitude is chosen, loneliness chooses you.

When I was a teenager my entire nutrition during tournaments consisted of pizza because I was too embarrassed to go to restaurants alone. I would call and order something basic like cheese pizza, pick it up, hoodie over head, never to be seen. I thought everyone pitied me for not having friends so I ate alone in my room watching foreign TV channels leaving fat stains on the bed sheets, beautiful hosts chattering away in Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese. I pride myself with the ability to recognise any language by the sound of it, honed over years of foreign TV watching. And then one day, smart phones came along, the possibility to stay in touch with family and friends, to post on social media, work actively against being forgotten. It never really remedied the loneliness however.

dinner for one

The loneliest you will ever feel as a tennis player is during a match which is slipping through your fingers, careening toward a crushing loss, nobody coming to save you, no knight on a white horse in sight. The second loneliest you will ever feel as a tennis player is coming back to your chain hotel room after said crushing loss, the beige-brown interior very much insulting, the chattering TV hosts no comfort. I used to turn on all electronic devices in my room after losing just to feel less alone.

It changed with time. The irony of being a tennis player is that when you’re at your physical peak, in full control of your body, youth streaming through every muscle and fibre of your being, traveling the tour is the most challenging. You don’t know the places you’re going to, you don’t know the people. You see hotel rooms and courts, palm trees becoming oak trees lining the site, desert turning to ocean surrounding your hotel. Later on, you have met people, you return to your favourite cafés and restaurants, finding a previously left hat of yours everywhere. It’s just unfortunate your body is rotting at the same time.

One of my favourite movies is Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. I could never quite put my finger on it as to why other than the movie is all *vibes* (as the kids say, amirite). Reflecting on it now, I think it has a lot to do with the solitude it captures. You can feel alone in a marriage like Scarlett Johansson does in the film. Or alone on the set of a whisky commercial because you don’t speak the language like Bill Murray. You can feel alone in a new city in a foreign country, not understanding the culture, not capable of reading the things that aren’t said with words, ravaged by jet lag, gliding through daylight in a haze. And you can find community in it, too. Connect through loneliness with other lonely creatures roaming the earth. There are plenty of us out there. Heck, they even have a minister of loneliness over in the UK.

japanese IPA for one

Nowadays, I love going to restaurants by myself. I bring a good book, an upright posture and a confident smile. You’re damn right I have no friends. But - I have seen the world. The desert winds and palm trees. Tennis courts and hotel rooms. And sometimes even the ocean. If I’m in a particularly frisky mood, I will even let the bartender convince me to order her favourite dish on the menu and exchange knowing glances with her when other customers at the bar are acting out. I will always bring an imaginary hat. Not a real one, duh, what is this, Brooklyn ten years ago?

I bring an imaginary hat. Because home is where I lay my hat.

Things that make me happy:

I just watched Chinatown for the first time (don’t judge) and Faye Dunaway’s screen presence blew me away. I don’t think I was able to enjoy the film as much because I kept longing for Faye to come back when she was not in a scene. Talk about Hollywood charisma. I was very close to doing something terrible to my eyebrows.

faye and her eyebrows

Things that make me unhappy:

Have you ever heard of Undines? The Little Mermaid is based on them. They are water nymphs stemming from the writings of Paracelsus. Almost always are they female and beautiful. The downside is they don’t have a soul. But they can get one! How, you ask? BY MARRYING A MAN. Girl. No. As a legend once said:

You’re a hater and you’re unattractive - inside. (Serena Williams)

This week’s newsletter was a bit different than usual. I tried to capture *vibes* (get it?) rather than a cohesive narrative - like Lost in Translation does. Next week I will be back into the nitty gritty of the tennis world. For now, I hope you find the perfect piece of clothing for a foggy Saturday afternoon!

Yours truly, Andrea