I barged out of the station and, with an hour to kill, went to eat lunch. Next door was a fast-food outlet called Flunch. Flunch for lunch! I should have known better. But it looked harmless enough—looked, in fact, like a simulacrum of McDonald’s, right down to the menu, which offered frites, milk shakes, and a choice of Burger Simple, Burger Fromage, or Burger Big.
“Big Burger, s’il vous plaît,” I said to the girl at the counter.
“You want what?”
“Big Burger,” I repeated.
“Ça n’existe pas,” she said. “That doesn’t exist.” Not that they were out of it or no longer sold it. No, it simply didn’t exist.
I pointed to the menu.
“Alors,” she said, smiling. “You mean Burger Big. I didn’t understand. You see, in French the adjective comes after the noun. You should learn our language.”
“It’s my language!” I bellowed. “‘Burger’ and ‘big’ are English.”
“As you wish,” she muttered.
“That’s what I wish. A Big Burger!”
But I was lying. What I wished was to lay waste to all of France. Where else in the world would one have to endure a lecture on grammar from a fast-food cashier?
***
Of course, the one-o’clock train was late. Of course I arrived at the Country Club quivering with rage, nervous exhaustion, and nausea—the Burger Big had lodged somewhere in my esophagus. But I figured the worst had to be behind me as I settled down to watch the rest of the Borg–Adriano Panatta match, which was knotted at a set apiece and three games all in the third set.
Other members of the press were in no better mood than I. The day was overcast and chilly, yet they had come dressed to work on their tans. Fortunately, I had had the foresight to wear a ski parka.
Borg got a service break, thanks to a double fault by Adriano Panatta. But then, unlike the old Borg, who seldom slipped when he was in the lead, he had difficulty clinging to his advantage. Serving sloppily, he gave Panatta several chances to break back, and if the Italian wasn’t equal to the opportunity, that had less to do with the Swede’s iron will than with Panatta’s poor play.
At the press conference, reporters were interested in Panatta only to the extent that he could comment on Borg’s shaky form. Once they had Borg in front of them, they abruptly shifted gears and were less interested in his form than in whether he would play Wimbledon. For British journalists, this was a favorite subject, their singular obsession.
Although I believed a public press conference was the wrong place to ask whether Borg had rigged a match with McEnroe, there seemed other questions that should have intrigued
journalists more than the odds on his playing Wimbledon. Repeatedly he had recited the short list of Grand Prix tournaments he had deigned to enter in 1982. But I wanted to know how many exhibition matches he would play this year.
As the room turned ominously silent, he fixed upon me what Russell Davies of the London Sunday Times has referred to as “those mutely piercing narrow eyes… I’m sure the Turin Shroud is one of his old towels.” After a significant pause Borg said, “ I have no idea. I play the Suntory Cup in Tokyo. After that, I don’t know.”
“Let’s forget the rest of the year. What’s your exhibition schedule for the next three months?”
“I—have—no—idea.” The words, spaced for emphasis fell on that cowed roomful of journalists like icy slabs from a glacier.
“The next month, then?” I persisted.
“I—have—no—idea.”
As every reporter knew, but few had informed their readers, Borg’s tournament schedule consisted exclusively of events where he had endorsement contracts or where his agents at IMG served as promoters. Whether these constituted illegal inducements or not, they obviously provided an added incentive. I assumed, as did most people in tennis, that that was why Borg was willing to qualify for those seven tournaments, but refused to do so at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, where he had no incentive except the same prize money available to everyone else.
Yet when I asked Borg why he played the qualies here and would again in Las Vegas, but not at the Grand Slam events, he muttered that he had to put his foot down somewhere.
Why didn’t he put it down in Monte Carlo?
“I decided to give the Pro Council until the French Open to change the rule.”
I waited for the other journalists to follow up on my questions. I had broken the ice. All they had to do was dive into the cold water with me. But they were less interested in whether his tax deal locked him into the Monte Carlo tournament than in the shakiness of his first serve.
Borg returned to his orange-juice metaphor. He said he was still feeling deconcentrated.
***
As at most Grand Prix events, there was a tournament for the press in Monte Carlo and I had entered, thinking it would be a welcome diversion. Now I wasn’t so sure. I had yet to recover from the nerve-racking train ride and the nauseating lunch, and my encounter with Borg had done nothing to improve my digestion. Still I decided to go ahead with my match.
Upstairs in the clubhouse, in a room reserved for umpires, ball boys, and journalists, I put on my tennis shorts and shoes. It was an elegant, old-fashioned changing room with oak-paneled walls, wooden benches, and lockers. Since all the lockers were filled, I hung my clothes on a hook, as I had seen others do.
Then I wondered what to do with my watch and wallet. Surely they would be safe here. After all, this was Monte Carlo, cops were ubiquitous, crime was said to be nonexistent, and several officious attendants oversaw the changing room. But finally I dropped my valuables into a racket cover and carried them onto the court.
Two hours later, having been run ragged by a diminutive Japanese photographer, I returned to the changing room and found my clothes in a damp knot on the floor. My pants pockets had been ripped inside out. My ski parka and equipment bag were gone.
Calling one of the attendants, I pointed to the pile of clothes. “I’ve been robbed.”
He was irate—at me, not the thief. “It’s not my fault.”
“I didn’t say it was. But I thought you’d like to know there are robbers in your locker room.”
“I’m not responsible. I can’t watch everything.”
I lacked the energy to argue. After showering and pulling on my disheveled clothes, I went outside, pondering the revelation that crime wasn’t nonexistent in Monte Carlo, just ignored. I stopped by the press room to pick up the transcript of Borg’s press conference. Generally, such transcripts give the essence, if not the entirety, of each question and answer. But the transcript of Borg’s interview contained neither my questions nor his evasive responses.
***
Despite Borg’s erratic performance thus far, few would have predicted what transpired in the quarterfinals. It wasn’t that the Swede played badly. He barely played at all and appeared not to care how lackadaisical he looked. Once a paragon of patience, he now rushed the net behind punchless approach shots. When serving, he usually stuffed the spare ball into his pocket, but today he kept it in his left hand, which made it impossible for him to hit his two-fisted backhand. Yannick Noah had little trouble breaking Borg twice and holding his own serve three times at love.
Yet, even after Borg dropped the first set 6–1, the crowd expected him to rally. They had seen him come back before; they were convinced he could do it again today. So it was doubly upsetting to watch him shamble through the second set, detached and absent-minded. Once he lost track of the score and started to serve from the wrong side. Another