Tennis Ace (3 page)

As his dad turned and walked away, Steve stared after him for a moment.

Even when I win, he thought, I can’t win.

G
inny ran up to her brother as he slowly walked toward the locker room. “All
right!
” she yelled, giving him a whack on the arm. “Way to go!”

Steve sighed. “Thanks, but I wish Dad felt that way. He says I don’t have the ‘killer instinct.’”

Ginny shook her head and turned to look at their father as he joined the mysterious stranger in the stands. “He doesn’t make
it easy on you.”

“Hey, I didn’t congratulate
you
,” Steve said. “You looked tough out there today. What was the final score?”

“Six—two, six—zero,” Ginny replied, trying to sound casual but looking delighted by the result.

Steve whistled. “All right, Gin! Awesome! Uh, sorry we didn’t stay till the end, but …”

Ginny held up her hands. “Don’t tell me, I know. You had to take an hour ’getting ready’ for your match.” Her face took on
a wistful look. “I wish Dad would give me that kind of attention.”

She brightened. “You know who the guy is with Dad, by the way?”

“He didn’t say. Who is he?”

Ginny smiled. “I’ll let Dad tell you. He’s the surprise he was telling you about before.”

Steve’s face fell. “
He’s
the surprise? I was hoping for a CD player.”

Ginny laughed. “This is better than a CD player any day. Go on, they’re waiting for you in the locker room.”

Steve felt too hot, tired, and discouraged to take any satisfaction in knowing that he had beaten Charlie Silver and would
advance to the semifinals. Then, on his way to the locker room, he saw someone who made his mood lighten. It was his buddy
Pat Carbo.

“Hey, awesome match!” Pat yelled. After Ginny, Pat was Steve’s biggest supporter.

Pat and Steve had learned the game of tennis together, when they were eight years old. Steve’s father had taught them himself,
setting up a rigorous
schedule of practices. Pat had stuck with it for a summer but then bowed out when he realized he liked soccer much better.

The rigorous practices had continued for Steve, however. He’d been a little lonely at first, but then Ginny had started playing,
too. Mr. Greeley had been reluctant for her to join in, but Mrs. Greeley had insisted.

So now, three times a week for two hours at a time, Mr. Greeley worked with his children on forehands, backhands, volleys,
serves, and lobs. He coached them on ways to draw opponents out of position. He taught them where to aim the ball to bounce
to make it impossible for an opponent to return. He showed them the tricks a ball could do with just a bit of spin applied
by the racket.

Steve couldn’t imagine his life without tennis, but sometimes he wished his father didn’t work him so hard. Still, hard work
paid off — he’d just won the quarterfinals, hadn’t he?

“Thanks, Pat,” Steve said now, smiling. “Listen, my dad’s waiting to talk to me. I’ll catch up to you later, okay? Maybe we
can go for ice cream or something.”

“You got it, Ace,” Pat said, shooting a finger at him.

Steve walked into the locker room, where his father stood with the stranger from the stands. Mr. Greeley was talking earnestly
to this man, who, Steve noted, still wore his mirrored shades.

“Here he is now,” his father said, turning and gesturing to his son.

He looks nervous, Steve thought. Who is this guy?

“Vince, this is my boy, Steve. Steve, I want you to meet Vince Marino.
The
Vince Marino.”

Steve knew the name and suddenly understood why his dad was so excited. Vince Marino ran a famous tennis school and camp in
Florida. He had developed some of the top pros in the game. His dad had shown him a magazine article about Vince, with pictures
of some of Vince’s past students. A few had won major titles: the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, the French Open, and so on.

Vince took off his sunglasses, smiled, and stuck out his hand. When Steve shook it, he found that the hand was strong and
callused. Coming from Florida as he did perhaps explained why he hadn’t been sweating in this heat.

“Congratulations, Steve,” Mr. Marino said. His voice was low-pitched, and he seemed to radiate energy. “I was impressed with
the way you bore down when the crunch was on.”

“Thanks,” Steve muttered, feeling self-conscious. This guy had trained some greats.

“I can see that you inherited your dad’s talent,” Mr. Marino continued. “Did your dad tell you we went to college together?
Ted was our number one player, and I was number four. You should have seen him back then. He really had the goods.”

Steve’s father jumped in quickly. “You know about Vince’s training center, Steve. If someone does well working with Vince,
it’s practically a ticket to the pro tour — Vince makes careers.”

“Sure,” Steve said. “I read about you, Mr. Marino. It sounds pretty awesome, your camp.”

Mr. Marino smiled again. “Your father has been bending my ear about you for years now, but I hadn’t been able to come see
you compete until now. Looks to me like you have a lot of potential.”

“Even if you gave Charlie more of a chance than you should have,” Mr. Greeley added hastily. “I figured you’d romp today,
son. What happened?”

What happened
? Steve thought. What happened was, I won in straight sets even though it was a hundred degrees out there. But that’s not
good enough for you, is it?

“Well, we’ll work on a few things later,” his father went on. “I’ve been telling Vince that you’d be a great candidate for
his summer training program. What would you think about going down to Florida this summer?”

“Whoa,” Mr. Marino said, holding up his hand as if he were directing traffic. “Let’s not rush things. It’s not a done deal
yet, Steve. I’m going to watch your semifinal tomorrow, and I also need to talk to you and your parents for a while before
anything is definite. But I will say this: I have a couple of openings, and you’re certainly in the running — probably a front
runner.”

Steve blinked. Go to Florida and play tennis all summer? Did he really want that? “Uh … thanks, Mr. Marino, that sounds …”

“Call me Vince from now on,” said the coach, patting Steve on the shoulder. “After the buildup Ted has given me, I feel like
I’ve known you for years.
The thing you need to consider, very carefully, is this: Do you
want
to commit yourself to my camp?”

Steve’s father stared at his old friend in disbelief. “Does he
want
to? Are you kidding? Why should that even come up? It’s the chance of a lifetime! Of
course
he wants to!”

But Vince was now focusing on Steve. “You enjoy tennis, Steve, I know that. But how important is it to you? Is it just a game
you’re good at and have fun with? Or is it something you want to excel at, no matter what? That’s what I want you to think
about for the next few days.”

He looked Steve in the eye.

“Because if you don’t care enough about tennis to live, eat, drink, and dream about it for a long time, maybe my place isn’t
for you. You’re a nice young man, and your dad and I go way back. But you’d better be ready to work your tail off if you come
down to Florida.”

Vince counted off on his fingers. “At the summer camp, you’ll be expected to work at least six hours a day, six days a week.
You’ll work at building up your stamina and strength. You’ll practice every part
of the game — service, return of service, volleying, ground strokes, half-volley, the works — until you can do it all in your
sleep. This is not your fun-and-games summer camp; it’s more like boot camp for tennis rookies. See what I mean?”

“He can do whatever you ask of him,” Mr. Greeley insisted. “Don’t you worry about that. I know my son.”

But Steve had listened to Vince describe the program with mounting anxiety. Now that school was out, he’d been looking forward
to kicking back and having fun with Pat and his other friends: going to the beach, catching all the cool summer movies, hanging
out at the mall with his buddies … and playing some tennis, too, but just for fun. Doing nothing but working on tennis sounded
more like going to school, but without any variety. How much did tennis matter to him?

Not as much as it mattered to his dad, for sure. His dad would feel awful if Steve simply turned down this chance. And maybe
he didn’t want to turn it down. Maybe the camp would turn out to be fantastic.
Ginny
would think it was fantastic. Right now, he didn’t know how to answer Vince.

There was a long silence, during which his father stared at him, looking upset.

Finally, Steve managed to stammer a reply. “That’s … it sounds really … amazing, Mr. — Vince. I guess I’ll think about it
real hard.”

Vince nodded. “Good. You do that. I think you have the physical skills and talent to be a fine tennis player. But it takes
more than that. You have to
want
it, bad. And you’re really the only one who knows for sure if you do.”

Steve and his father joined Vince as he headed outside. As Vince came through the door, he almost ran over Ginny, who was
waiting just outside.

Ginny looked awed, as if she had just run into her favorite movie or rock star. “Mr. Marino? My dad didn’t really get a chance
to introduce us before. I’m Ginny. It’s an honor to meet you. I’ve read all about your school. I’d love to play pro tennis
in a few years, and your school would be perfect for —”

“Ginny,” Mr. Greeley interrupted with a warning in his voice.

But Vince smiled at Ginny. “You were in the quarters today, right?”

“Yeah!” Ginny nodded, her face lit up by a proud
smile. “I won six—two, six—zero. I’ll have a semi tomorrow, a little before Steve.”

“I wasn’t aware of that.” Vince looked from Ginny to her father and back. “Well, I’ll definitely come and watch you.”

Ginny’s eyes grew wide. “
Would
you, Mr. Marino?”

“Call me Vince,” said the coach.

“That’d be awesome, knowing you’re in the stands, Mr. — Vince.”

“Sure thing,” Vince said, and turned to Mr. Greeley. “I have to go make some calls. Walk me to my car, okay?”

Steve watched them leave. His father was talking eagerly, probably trying to persuade Vince that Steve really, truly wanted
to spend his summer living and breathing tennis. But Steve felt sure that Vince had his doubts.

Just like he did.

Ginny poked her brother in the ribs. “So? What’d he have to say? Are you going to his camp?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if I
want
to go. Dad —”

“Don’t know if you want to …” Ginny was astonished. “
Why
? How can you pass this up?”

“You know what they do at that camp?” Steve demanded. “They play tennis. All the time. Every day. Nothing but tennis. I mean,
they let you eat and sleep, I guess, but otherwise, it’s just tennis.”

Ginny sighed. “Yeah, isn’t it wonderful?”

“No, it’s not!” exclaimed Steve. “I mean, I know you think it’s wonderful, but I might hate it! Dad thinks it’s wonderful,
too, and when he saw I wasn’t all that happy with the idea, he looked as if I had just forgotten his birthday. I don’t know
what I’m going to do.”

Ginny shook her head. “Yeah, I see what you mean. I guess I was only thinking about how great it’d be for me to go there.
Working on my game all summer sounds like heaven. But you’re not into tennis like I am.”

“Not yet, anyway. Maybe I might feel different about it in a few years, but right now, there’re too many other things I enjoy,
too much I’d miss if I went to that camp. But how can I tell Dad?”

Ginny shrugged. “Tell you what, I’ll think about how you can break the news to Dad, and you think about how you can get him
to think about my tennis career the way he thinks about yours. Is that a deal?”

Steve grinned and stuck out a hand, which Ginny shook. “At least we can level with each other,” he said.

Ginny laughed. “You’re lucky that you’ll never have to play me. I’d level you in a whole different way.”

“I’ll bet you would, too,” replied Steve, giving Ginny an admiring look.

T
hat night before dinner, Ginny and Steve sat quietly as their father told Steve what had been wrong with his play that afternoon.

“I can tell from your body language, the way you stand, when you’re giving it a hundred percent. Half the time today, you
weren’t. If you’d been totally involved, Charlie would’ve been lucky to win more than a couple of games.”

“It was hot out there,” muttered Steve.

“I know it was hot. But if you’d played hard the whole time, the match would have been over that much more quickly. Also,
we’re going to have to work on your passing shots. If they’d been sharper, Charlie wouldn’t have been able to rush the net
so often. Maybe we can get in some practice time tomorrow on that. And your topspin serve.”

“What was wrong with my topspin serve?” Steve asked. “It was working well, I thought.”

“It could be better, Champ. It should really leap off the court. Yours needs a bit more juice on it.”

“Dad?” Ginny said. “What about my match? Got any notes for me?”

Mr. Greeley looked startled. “Notes for you, honey? Hey, you won six—two, six—zero. What else is there to say?”

Ginny wouldn’t give up. “Well, is there anything you think I should work on? Anything you might want to help me with?”

He shook his head. “Not really, Gin. I mean, I didn’t see the whole match, but from what I saw, you’re doing all the right
things.”

Although it sounded like a compliment, Steve saw that Ginny didn’t look too happy.

Mrs. Greeley came in from the kitchen with dinner. Steve hoped that the conversation could now take a new turn. But no such
luck.

“It’s just too bad that you had to have an off day when Vince was there,” Mr. Greeley said as he helped himself to some lasagna.
“Maybe I should have warned you that he was coming.”

“He seemed to think I did pretty well,” answered Steve.