The Locker Room

The locker room in the sport of tennis is a strange ecosystem. On the surface, it’ a place where tennis players change and shower before and after matches. In reality, however, tennis players eat there and nap there, they meditate and prepare their materials in the locker room - while, most importantly and somewhat eerily, they’re surrounded by all their opponents and rivals. You technically go back to the locker room to be yourself, supposedly the one area in professional tennis that promises privacy, but you actually have to present a neatly put-together façade.

If you were to externalise some of the feelings you have before a match - crying, yelling, nervous breakdowns - your opponent would see you. So, you better pull yourself together.

There are not many other sports where opponents share a space before they go out to battle. Not many other sports where you can study your rival’s face, their rituals of preparation, how they do their hair, whether they like their outfit, how many times they sprint to the bathroom (signs of nerves?) and what they eat for hours before you eventually see them across the net. Your focus on the opponent before a match is like a computer calculating every information and breaking it down to one question: How confident are they that they can beat me today?

Hopefully, the answer is: not very.

the emptier, the eerier

In turn, you know you are being watched, too. So, you put on a relaxed face and stuff your nose into a complicated looking piece of literature to pretend like you care about bigger things in life - not some random tennis match - all the while, your hands are cold and sweaty like a defeathered turkey.

Ironically, in the beginning of a tournament when the locker room is full of tennis players, when you can barely find a space to put your bag or shower, the atmosphere is light and chatty. Laughter bounces off the lockers and hair brushes and sunscreen are readily shared. It’s crowded enough for you to ignore the few girls who are crying behind a towel. It never failed to bring a shudder to my back, though, when I entered the same room a mere two days later and it felt decimated. Half the women gone, on to better and brighter pastures. There was always something sinister about the gradual emptying of a locker room. The emptier it got, the more crowded it felt. While women drop like flies, the atmosphere becomes thicker and thicker. Until it’s final day and only two of you are left.

During my time on tour, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams were the masters of the locker room. The energy they gave off was always cool yet focused, always calm yet intense, always relaxed yet ready. I’m certain that many of their matches were decided in the locker room and the win only collected on court. Too great was their aura prior, too smothering, too cloying, to be able to perform at your best. Confidence is not only the decisions you make on court, it’s also the façade you present before you even enter the arena.

queen of the locker room

It’s funny looking back at it now because as a retired played I look at the times in the locker room and they don’t feel competitive to me. Quite the contrary. In retrospect, the locker room feels like a safe space, an area where like-minded women come together to be the best tennis players they can be. Where some of the most resilient beings in sports eat dry rice and change the grip on their racquet before they go out on court and toy with good and bad days like it’s nobody’s business. Looking back, it doesn’t feel like a room filled with rivals. It feels like a room filled with sisters.

For a little while in my life, these were the only women in the world who knew exactly what I was going through. Even though, we all hid it well behind big books and stone-cold faces.

Things that make me happy

The second round match between Ben Shelton and Ugo Humbert in Washington D.C. made me really happy. It was an incredibly fun match with everything a great match needs. Two highly competitive tennis players who try their utmost best, strategy, amazing atmosphere and crazy points. Very entertaining and the best cure for California-induced jet lag.

into the quarterfinals

Things that make me unhappy

Last week, I mentioned to you my current obsession with fragrances. After months and months of deliberating, I finally decided to spend the absurd amount of $350 for 50ml on Safran Secret by Maison Crivelli. I bought the bottle at Scent Bar Hollywood in L.A., one of the coolest perfume shops I had ever been to. I was the happiest human being on earth for exactly half an hour before I dropped the bottle in the parking lot of my hotel. It shattered to a million pieces and so did my heart. The stain is still there and I hate to admit that I sometimes kneel there and smell it when nobody’s watching. My self-respect is gone. Just like Safran Secret.

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Thank you for reading this week! May you smell the parking lot for the perfect amount of subtly placed saffron notes just like I do in order for me to feel less alone in my crazy.

Yours truly, Andrea