On Friday the tournament photographer asked Mara to move her chair so he could get a picture of Inez with the flag behind her.
“She's warming up,” Mara said.
“I know. Just the chair.”
She moved it. He squatted, took six pictures, thanked her and disappeared. Mara put the chair back where it had been. Inez watched from the baseline, bouncing a ball on her strings.
“You could have stayed in it.”
“He wanted the flag.”
“The flag's having a big week.”
The quarterfinal was second on the main court. Inez had won her second-round match the day before in straight sets, sweating through a windy afternoon against a qualifier named Anja Ressel who hit her first serve as hard as her second and both unpredictably. Mara had spent most of the match making sure her hat didn't blow off. Afterward she had been able to tell Inez one useful thing: she was recovering better after the wide ball. Inez had said she knew, which Mara was learning was not always dismissal. Sometimes it was pleasure.
Today Elise Kovac waited on the other side of the draw. Kovac stood inside the baseline to return second serves, almost contemptuously close, and took the ball in a short hard swing. Her own serve was less threatening. The match, Mara thought, would be decided in the first two balls of Inez's service games. She told her that while Inez put on a fresh wristband.
“Give me the first one,” Inez said. “Then we'll talk about the second.”
Mara fed a ball from the return position. Eli, hired again for the warm-up, stood behind her trying not to get hit. Inez served, Mara drove the reply toward her feet, and Inez slapped it into the net.
“A little more room after the serve,” Mara said.
“That's your best return today.”
“I'm saving it.”
They did five more. Mara couldn't reproduce the shot. The first went long, the second too wide, the third sat up like a present. Eli took over, and in a few minutes Inez was getting the racket ready before the reply arrived. She didn't look comfortable. There was enough time before the match to find a pattern, not enough to make it something her body would do when surprised.
In the stadium Inez chose to receive. The box was near the north corner; she started at the far end and moved after the first game. Mara put her bag underneath the chair, checked the water and then made herself stop checking things.
Kovac's return was as quick as advertised. On the first second serve she reached inside the baseline and struck the ball back down the middle. Inez was still moving forward from the service motion. She caught it awkwardly at her hip and left a short ball. Kovac hit the winner into the opposite corner.
Mara had prepared her for that. She had been right. It was no help at all.
Inez held the game, finding first serves when she needed them. Kovac held hers. In the fourth game Inez tried taking pace off the second serve and adding height. Kovac stepped farther in, caught it before it rose and drilled it at her again. Inez had to leap back to clear room for her arms. She lost the point and glared down at the spot where she had landed, as if a piece of court had been removed.
At two-three, serving, she fell behind love-thirty. Mara could see the fear in her service motion now, the arm slowing just enough to make everything worse. Her first serve missed long. The second caught the tape, dropped over and had to be taken again. The let bought time but no answer.
Inez walked behind the baseline and tugged at the fingers of her left hand. Mara was near her end. When Inez glanced toward the box, Mara spoke.
“One step back after it,” she said. “Ready there.”
Inez looked at the space behind the line. She served to Kovac's body, not hard enough to prevent the attack but close enough to make her turn. Kovac sent the ball through the center again. This time Inez had moved back. She got a full swing on the reply, and the weight of her backhand drove Kovac behind the baseline.
They played eight more shots before Kovac missed. It was only fifteen-thirty. Mara had to keep herself in the chair.
Inez saved the game with two first serves and a rally in which she refused the line twice before taking it. At three all she could breathe. Mara could see it: her shoulders lowered, her towel moved less quickly across her face.
There were no breaks until five all. Then Kovac left two replies short through the center. Inez won both rallies, coming forward on the second to put away a volley. She took the next point on a backhand return, broke, and served out the set seven-five. On set point Kovac attacked the second serve again. Inez was waiting farther back and gave her the ball deep enough to take the next choice away.
Mara applauded until her palms stung. There were perhaps three hundred people in the stadium, fewer than at Merritt, and she could hear a child asking why the players had to start again. It was a reasonable question. Doing the thing once was hard enough.
In the second set Kovac changed her return. Instead of driving everything through Inez, she used the short angle. Now the extra step back made the court wider. Inez had time for a full swing when she could reach the ball, but twice she couldn't. Kovac broke for four-two. Inez broke back and held to reach four all, only to lose the next two games and the set, six-four.
Mara scratched out the last line in her notebook. Too simple. It had been too simple to expect a player as good as Kovac to keep sending the same ball.
At the start of the third, Inez switched the direction of her second serve. Not always, not with any conspicuous signal from the box. Sometimes into the body, sometimes farther toward the outside of the service box, forcing Kovac to choose. The returner had liked the certainty more than the speed. With a little less of it, her compact swing produced a ball Inez could use.
Kovac held. Inez held. They went through four games without a break, and then Inez began finding her backhand down the line. Mara had admired that shot from the wrong side of the net for years. It had a particular cruelty: so little indication it was coming, and then the ball had already passed. Kovac began shading toward it. Inez hit crosscourt instead.
At three all, Inez broke. Kovac saved the first break point with a brave second serve. On the next, she tried the same serve and missed the line. The double fault was followed by a silence so complete Mara heard a water bottle fall over on the other side of the stadium.
Inez put her head down and went to the chair.
She held for five-three. Kovac held for five-four. Then Inez stood with two balls in her hand, needing one more game.
Inez got ahead thirty-love, the second point a volley that nearly hit Kovac. She raised a hand; Kovac raised hers back without smiling. Then a missed forehand, an inviting second serve. Thirty all. Mara felt each missed first serve in her own shoulder, a little hitch that had nothing to do with her arm. Inez's eyes traveled toward her, then stopped at the baseline.
Inez hit a first serve at Kovac's hip. The return came back short and high. For a beat she seemed to wait, suspicious of the gift. Then she went forward and hit the forehand into the open court.
On match point she missed the first serve again. Mara pressed her heels down. Inez took her time, served wide and followed the ball with her whole body leaning into the court. Kovac caught it early, sending the return short crosscourt. Inez was there. She couldn't hit hard from that low position. She lifted the ball deep to the other corner and kept moving.
Kovac got to it. Her passing shot had pace, but Inez was balanced now, the racket in front of her. She blocked the volley into the empty court.
For the second time that week, Mara found herself on her feet before she knew she had stood.
Inez came to the box after the handshake and held out her hand. Mara slapped it, awkwardly high, laughing. She had never done that with Tess; Tess always came straight into her. Inez gripped her fingers for a second before letting go.
“That was work,” Inez said.
“It was.”
“Jesus.”
She sat on the bottom step and drank. Mara stayed beside her, blocking the passage until an attendant asked them to move. Inez got up slowly. Her legs had begun to stiffen.
In the corridor a television was showing Tess's quarterfinal. Mara stopped before she meant to. Tess was serving, up a set, her ponytail dark with sweat. Hana stood in the background of the shot, one hand on the rail.
“Is that live?” Inez asked.
“I think so.”
They watched Tess hold. The camera followed her to the chair. Mara knew she should look away and couldn't. Tess had a little white patch of sunscreen near her nose. It was exactly where Mara would have wiped it with her thumb.
“I'll go change,” Inez said.
Mara turned. “I'll come.”
“Don't need you in there.”
“No. Of course.”
Inez went on. Mara watched one more game, then forced herself to leave before the next began.
Tess won in straight sets. By the time the score reached Mara's phone, she had found the match against Inez from California and opened it on her laptop. The hotel desk was too small; she put the computer on a folded towel so the screen would sit high enough. Here was the crosscourt exchange. Here was Tess waiting for the opponent to change direction first. Here was the low ball that made Inez reach too soon.
Mara watched the points with the sound off. She could see where the chance would come. A heavy backhand toward Tess's forehand, another ball deep through the middle, then the shorter reply. Under pressure Tess would protect the middle before she attacked the space. Mara had built that care into her, kept her steady while other girls tried something glorious and missed.
She wrote the pattern down. Then she opened a newer match to see if it was still there.