Page 7 of Carrie Soto Is Back

“De nuevo,” he’d say, a grown man crouching down low to get eye-to-eye with me when I was no taller than his hip. “In a pinpoint stance, you must bring your back foot in before you connect.”

“De nuevo,” he’d say, smiling. “Save that spin for a second serve,hijita.¿Entendido?”

And each time, at the ages of five, six, seven, eight, he’d be met with the same response. “Sí, papá.”Sí, papá.Sí, papá.Sí, papá.

Over time, my father started peppering his “De nuevo” with “Excelente.”

I reached every day for those “excelentes.” I dreamed about them. I lay in bed at night on my Linus and Lucy sheets, staring at the framed Rod Laver press photo I’d begged my father for, going over my form in my head.

Soon enough, my groundstrokes were strong, my volleys were sharp, my serves were deadly. I was an eight-year-old able to serve from the baseline and hit the small target of a milk carton one hundred times in a row.

People walking by the courts would think they were clever when they called me “Little Billie Jean King,” as if I didn’t hear it ten times a day.

Soon, my father introduced the idea of strategy.

“A lot of players can win the games they serve,” my father would say. “Decime por qué.”

“Because a serve is the only time a player can control the ball.”

“¿Y qué más?”

“If you serve it right, you control the serve and then the return. And even the rally.”

“Exacto.Holding your game when you serve is the basis of your strategy.”

“Bueno, entiendo.”

“But most people, they focus all their energy on their serve. They perfect their serve so much, and they forget the most important part.”

“The return.”

“Exacto.Your serve is your defense, but you canwingames with a good return. If you hold all the games you serve, and your opponent holds all their games, who is going to win the set?”

“The first person to break the other one’s service game.”

“Exacto.If you break their serve in just one game—just one—and you hold all of your own, you will win the set.”

“So I have to be a good server and a good returner.”

“You have to be what we call an ‘all-court player,’ ” he said. “Great at serving, volleying, groundstrokes, and your return. Okay, let’s play.”

He always won, day after day. But I kept trying. Match after match, every evening after school, sometimes twice on weekends.

Until one cloudy January afternoon, when the air was just a bit too crisp. All day it had been threatening to do the very thing the Southern California sky had promised to almost never do.

We were tied in the first set when I returned two serves in a row with cross-court forehands that were so fast, my father couldn’t get to them.

And for the first time in my young life, I broke his serve.

“¡Excelente!” he said with his arms in the air, running over to my side of the court. He spun me in the air.

“I did it!” I said. “I broke your serve!”

“Yes, you did,” he told me. “Yes, you did.”

About two minutes after I won the set, the sky cracked open and the rain started pouring down. My father put his jacket over my head as we raced to the car.

After we got in and shut the doors, I looked over at him. His facewas all lit up even as he shivered from the cold. “Excelente, pichoncita,” he said as he grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Muy pero muy bien.” He was still smiling as he turned the key in the ignition and backed out of the parking lot.

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