“You need an agent,” Tomas said as he put down his phone and pencilled yet another thing into my diary. “I can deal with scheduling your media appearances, but I’ve had two calls feeling out sponsorship deals just today and I am not made for hardball negotiations about money.”
“I’m sorry,” I groaned, dropping into the chair. “I know. I’ve just been putting it off.”
“Yes, because you don’t like changing things, in case this exact balance of everything is the only reason you’re currently playing well.”
“Hey!”
He grinned as he looked up. “Tell me I’m wrong!”
“You know I can’t, but you didn’t have tosayit.”
Tomas hit play on the TV, and the match of mine he’d been watching before the interruption sped back into life, the camera zooming in as I was about to serve. “Yes, I did, because not letting you get stuck in bad mental grooves is part of my job. Negotiating contracts for you is not though.”
“No, I’ll find someone.”
“Ask Danny for a recommendation maybe. I swear that man knows everyone. Or you could ask Tina. She might even deal with these for you for now if you ask nicely. I know long term you might not want Miles’s sister as your agent and I don’t even pretend to know what’s going on with his business stuff, but whatever it is, she’s been actively looking for additional clients.”
Because of course Miles’s fight with his parents had made her life hard too.
“She might be grateful for the extra business,” he added when I didn’t answer. “Talk to them maybe. Or call Danny. Either way, it’s not going to change how you’re playing, okay? Even in small ways, life changes every day.”
“Yeah, I know.” I slumped lower in the chair, while on the TV the commentators were discussing my first serve percentage in a way that made me glad I couldn’t hear them while on court. “You’re as bad as Miles for calling me on all my terrible patterns.”
With a smug little smile, Tomas made a note on his pad in hisbarely legible scrabble-scratch. “I’m learning from the master. Although—” He hit pause on the replay again, past-Matteo having achieved only two quick service points. “I had a call from a queer youth charity while you were out, too. They’ve got a pavilion in the grounds and want to schedule a time for you to have a hit for them. There’s been huge interest from the press, apparently, but I didn’t want to give them an answer without asking you since your dislike of being The Gay Tennis Player isn’t so much a mental rut as a protective rejection of the shit you’ve had to deal with.”
I stared half-unseeing at my frozen face on the TV screen, caught part way to one of the smiles I apparently produced a lot on court when things were going well. “Yeah,” I said. “Although Tina tells me I should embrace being The Gay Player as an investment in my career.” I’d always hated people talking about anything but my tennis, though it was hard to know how much of that had been built on fear of bigotry – bigotry I had put a lot of energy into avoiding, perhaps to my own detriment. Especially since avoiding it would never make it go away.
On the TV, past-Matteo looked like he really wanted to finish that smile. I sighed. “Something something we owe it to those who came before us to help those who come after us something something,” I muttered. And then because Tina had absolutely been right, I said, “Yeah, sure. Let’s do it.”
THERE WAS A lot of press. They talked to the charity organisers, they talked to the gathered crowd, they talked to the kids and teens who’d come to hit with me, and they talked to me. They took photos in which everyone smiled, and filmed me perform-ing the simple task of just existing and hitting easy balls for a collection of different kids with queer flags pinned to their shirts. And everyone smiled at me like I was the fucking sun.
It was amazing.
And at the end of the hour when we were wrapping up, a junior who’d been helping entertain the waiting kids made his way over as I was packing away my racquets. Around us, the crowd was dissipating off into the general excitement of the final qualifying day, Melbourne Park awash with pre-tournament anticipation.
“Excuse me, Mr Russo?”
“Hey, it’s just Mat,” I said, shooting him a smile as I zipped up my bag.
“Oh, uh, Mat, um . . .” He looked at his feet. “I just wanted to thank you. You know. For coming out when you did. It, uh . . . meant a lot to me, because I’d always loved tennis, but wasn’t sure I should follow that dream, you know? As a gay kid, I thought I was just meant to be into like . . . musical theatre or something.”
I huffed a laugh, glancing up into a pair of very earnest green eyes. “Right, and while musical theatre is great and all, nothing beats tennis. And nothing beats being able to be yourself without people making assumptions.” Straightening up, I left my bag where it was and held out my hand. “What’s your name?”
“Alex,” he said, shaking it. “Alex Dordevic.”
“Nice to meet you, Alex. And you’re welcome. I don’t think what I did was special or unique, because being gay in sport shouldn’t be special or unique, but until the rest of the world agrees, I’m happy to keep proving the point over and over again by being The Gay Tennis Player.”
And I was, I realised as I said it. Because I’d chosen to be out and honest not only for myself but out of a sense of duty to the gay men who’d come before me, who’d come out despite the danger to force the world to accept their existence. Compared to that, the occasional annoying press interview and bigot online who wanted me to stop talking about where I put my dick was nothing. I wasThe Gay Tennis Player and I would go on being The Gay Tennis Player until no one cared anymore.
“Do you think there will be more?” Alex asked. “Gay players, I mean.”
I thought of Miles, forced to feign a relationship, to buy up exposing photos and put up with a team who sniggered behind his back. He’d felt like a coward when I came out and he didn’t, but at least I’d been there holding space for him, proving it was possible when everyone else in his life kept him small and afraid. One day he would come out, and when he did, he might change the sport even more than I had by proving I was no oddity. I just hoped it wouldn’t be years away, the thought of having to hide that long one that always depressed me.
“Yeah, of course,” I said, soothing that worry with the knowledge that however long it took, our relationship was no less real for being private. “Besides, there already is, isn’t there? There’s you.”
“Oh!” An enormous smile spread across the young man’s face. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
I picked up my bag and patted his shoulder. “It was lovely to meet you. I look forward to following your career, Alex.”
