By Andreea Giuclea and Ani Sandu

Translated by Craig Turp

Photo by Matei Buță

Illustrations by Dan Ungureanu

Originally published in December 2017 in issue #30 of DoR, a journal of Romanian nonfiction.

Simona Halep looks down at the white towel with which she has just wiped sweat from her arms. Her coach Darren Cahill, called down from the stands to have a short chat, sits down on the green bench next to her. He looks at her, then pats her on the knee.

- OK. No problem. Reset, he tells her in his Australian accent.

It’s March 2017, and Halep, the world’s number 4, is playing Britain’s Johanna Konta — ranked 11th — in the quarter final of the Miami Open. It’s so hot that during breaks the players are draping towels dipped in ice over themselves. Halep won the first set 6–3, a set in which the commentators said that the British player didn’t play badly, but simply couldn’t compete with Halep’s brilliant play. The Romanian then has a chance to win the match in the second set, at 5–4, but Konta forces a tie-break. Halep serves two double faults and Konta takes the set, forcing a decisive third.

- Sometimes I need energy, Halep tells Cahill. She wipes her face with the towel and says something about asking for too much. Then she sighs deeply.

- This is my character.

She turns towards the bag of rackets between her and Cahill and pulls angrily at the zip.

- I’m so bad.

She takes out a new racket, a Wilson with a red and black frame.

- Ridiculous bad.

The 51-year-old coach looks at her calmly under the peak of his blue cap.

- And how are you going to fix it then?

Simona shrugs her shoulders.

- No chance!

While she unwraps the new racket, she lists her mistakes, without looking at Cahill, who reminds her that she had played well until then.

- You can write yourself off, but I’m not writing you off.

- All the time I complicate things.

- Well then Simo, you have an opportunity to make a difference. You’ve been in this position many, many times before, and most times you’ve come out second best. So now you have an opportunity to change things. It’s up to you. You can decide what you want to do here. You can go down this path and it’s fine. Or you can take a deep breath, put the towel over your head and try to get a little better in these situations. It’s as simple as that. It’s up to you. It comes from within.

The conversation in which Cahill reminded Halep that her biggest rival on court was herself, not her opponent, took place three months after the start of a season which she had begun with high hopes: both her own and those of her fans at home.

At 25, she was coming off the back of three years in which she had never fallen outside the world’s top five for more than a few weeks; three years in which she had won 14 WTA tournaments and reached the final of a Grand Slam. She was the most popular Romanian athlete, the highest-earning, she had the most fans and a long list of sponsors. Kids took up the game because of her, and fans gathered in front of their TV sets and crowded the stands to watch her play.

And yet she had never won a Grand Slam, and some of her fans began to fear she never would. She had enjoyed impressive victories, had been praised to the heavens on television and Facebook, but her defeats were also referred to as shameful. Praised by fans and tennis folk for her varied and fluid game, based on speed, she was also criticised for her weak serve, for changing coaches so often and for caving in under pressure at key moments.

She had prepared for the new season with her coach Cahill, at his home in Australia. With him by her side, she was hoping to win a Grand Slam, maybe even become world number one. She left for Australia before Christmas, which she usually spent at home with her family in Constanța. Physical tests looked good. She was ready.

During her first matches however, a victory and a defeat at Shenzhen, in China, she felt pain in her left knee. An old bout of tendinitis had returned, which made it difficult for her to sprint across court. The fastest player on the circuit couldn’t use her speed. Before the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, she did everything she could to get fit: she took anti-inflammatories, and during the first round, she asked for a medical break. She even took a painkiller. But it still hurt too much and she lost. After another tournament from which she had to withdraw due to the injury, she took a break. At the end of March, missing match practice, she fell to fifth place in the WTA rankings and wondered if she would even finish the year in the top eight, high enough to make the WTA Finals in Singapore.

Miami was the first tournament she really felt physically prepared for. That’s what Cahill was trying to remind her of during their on-court coaching: to give herself time to regain confidence. She was the better athlete.

Simona looked at him.

- You think I can win this match?

- I absolutely think you can win this match.

- If I didn’t win it in the second set, when I had so many chances…

She rummaged through a red bag looking for a pair of socks.

- You didn’t do everything wrong. A couple of doubles, she hit some great shots, she was a little braver on the bigger points. That’s what I want you to be. Be brave!

Simona bent down to change her socks, moaning about her serve.

- I’m not fighting you on this, OK? You have a conversation with that person on your shoulder, not with me. Because I’m not the one who can answer these questions for you. You are the only one who can answer these questions for you. And you have an opportunity to fix this. You have another hour of tennis out here, where you can make it physical. You are a better athlete, make it an athletic contest. (…) If you make a couple of errors, no problem. But play this on your terms. (…) Time for change.

He encouraged her again with a pat on the knee, then went back to his box, leaving her alone. Simona gave an empty stare for a few moments. Time, said the umpire. Simona stood up, picked up her racket and walked back onto court. She won the first game of the final set, saving a break-point, but it wasn’t enough. She lost the set 6–2.

Then she lost Cahill too.