Breakfast at Wimbledon

"It would be the last time I ever played tennis with my father. And it was the last tennis match my father would ever play. It was the last Wimbledon he’d ever watch and it was historic."

On Sunday, July 14, 2019, Novak Djokovic defeated Roger Federer in the Wimbledon’s men’s single final, winning 7-6 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (4), 4-6, 13-12 (3). It lasted exactly 4 hours and 57 minutes and stands as the longest men’s singles final in Wimbledon history. Djokovic, in the first-ever fifth set tiebreak, saved two championship points. It was hands down the best tennis match I’ve ever seen in my life.

I watched it with my father. It would be the last game of tennis I’d ever watch with him. His last Wimbledon. He died October 1, 2019.

My family, thanks to the generosity of my younger sister Lee, had gathered at a large beach house a block from Bethany Beach in Delaware, where we had gathered off and on for decades. We call it the “Yellow House,” and we had rented it before. It had a large porch that faced the ocean and the sunrise, enough bedrooms for all of us, a large kitchen, and it was a short block walk to the private white sand beach. Dad had been given his surprising and completely out-of-the-blue diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in late May and had maybe 6 months to live. Lee went to work to figure out how we could have one last family gathering with Dad and the beach was a no brainer. All of us rearranged our schedules to be there together. The grandkids came, too. All of them.

I think it may have been random that our time there coincided with Wimbledon, but I also believe there are no coincidences. We did all the things we’d done since we were children. We got a huge bushel of crabs and ears of corn and beer and drank wine and our fingers smelled of Old Bay for days. Huck was 18 months old and had his first taste of crab. My mother and sister and I (with Huck in his sling) watched every sunrise on the beach, waking at 5am to catch the entire thing. One of us (it may have been me) brought the iPhone along to play William Tell’s “Overture” or “Chariots of Fire” or “Here Comes The Sun” while the colors peaked at the edge of the ocean. We played poker and there was even a complete rage blowout from Dad, being totally stubborn about the rules, so much so that Adam, my brother-in-law, and my mother left the table and Jamey saw my father’s sudden and unnecessary anger for the first time and understood me a bit deeper. Historical shit. And we sat on the beach and read and watched Huck lap at the waves for the first time. Dad was tired from radiation the week before and had decided to stop any treatments, but he managed an hour or two on the beach every day. The adult men boogey-boarded like they were teenagers and the teenagers boogey-boarded like pros and the teenage and preteen girls sunned in their tiny string bikinis and my sister, my sister-in-law and I wondered why all the younger girls have perfectly flat stomachs while we sunned in our two pieces, letting the soft mushy parts hang out because, now in our 50’s, we don’t care and we have chosen to love our beautifully imperfect stomachs that bore children.

One night, after dinner, Adam, my brother-in-law played a Spotify playlist he had created for this week. All the songs we loved that Dad loved from our childhood. Willie Nelson, Anne Murray, Johnny Cash, so much Neil Diamond. We all danced and sang along. He had added the songs Lee and I had danced to with him at our weddings (both of mine). Lee danced with Dad to hers. I couldn’t do it. I just listened. There were a few just for Mom and Dad to dance together. Oh, they were a pair! You should have seen them. They were incredible dancers. Dad knew how to lead and they glided with ease over the hardwood floors while we all watched. Some cried. There was a lot of wine (and seltzer for me). We filmed it. Everyone singing to “Sweet Caroline” as if we were still a family of 6 with the wood-paneled Buick station wagon full packed on the way to Ocean City, MD from Ellicott City on summer weekends in the 1970s.

I knew Dad got up every year each Wimbledon men’s final to watch. Every year. Tennis was our family sport and dad was a champion. He spent weeks at Vic Braden’s Tennis Camp with his twin Will. They were extraordinary players. Will had built tennis courts in his back yard and once my parents moved back to Maryland, Dad and Will continued their rivalry until my uncle’s death 10 years prior (I’m pretty sure Uncle Will died having defeated Dad). We all played tennis to a degree. None of us became champions. I had talent, but it wasn’t my passion like music and tennis season competed with marching band season so I could never play for the high school team. We belonged to a few tennis clubs and I did do winter junior league tennis for a time. I took lessons off and on during my childhood and we belonged to a summer pool and tennis club and I played many times in the summer with my father and his friends. My father was a strict etiquette coach. Yelled at me if I didn’t retrieve my own ball right after the first serve if it hit the net. Forced me to the net. I hated it. But my game got better. He was a champion player until the end.

I knew he’d be up on July 14, 2019, sitting in front of the TV in his tennis whites. He did that as a sign of respect. So, I set my alarm and got dressed and joined him. I think he had champagne poured and the coffee was on. It was early, like 6am. Maybe it was later in the afternoon, but I like to remember it or mis-remember it as early in the morning. Of course it was later, now that I think of it, but there’s something about remembering it as a 6am ‘nobody else is up but us’ event that mythologizes it. The announcers on TV call their broadcast “Breakfast at Wimbledon” and I can’t remember a time when Dad didn’t call me that day to make sure I knew it was on and who was playing. He’d talk about the players as if I followed as closely as he did. He got “Tennis” magazine, and I’m sure there were others. He followed all of the matches, the mixed doubles, the college matches. He knew who was good, who was retiring, who was top seed. He didn’t like the Williams’ sisters and, to be quite honest, I’m absolutely sure it was latent racism, even though I would not call my father racist at all. But he was born in the late 1930’s and his mom was a blatant racist and a few of my cousins from that side seem to be racists, so I’ve got to think two muscular, powerful, very dark tennis champions challenged my father’s notion of what a woman tennis player should look like. I adored Venus and Serena. But I grew up wanting to be Chrissie Evert, of course.

I hadn’t been following the matches, but I knew who Federer and Novak were and I admired both of them. I loved long career players like Pete Sampras and Jimmy Connors. I’d seen many US Open matches and sat next to Yannick Noah once. I’d love to meet Martina one day and tell her how much her journey meant to me. Tracy Austin was my hero for a while. So was Bjorn Borg. Then Andre Agassi and Steffi Graff.

That match was epic. There had been nothing like it before or since and my father and I were up and down on the couch shouting, yelling, cheering for the sheer joy of the beauty of the dance we watched. Having played tennis, I know how crazy those shots are. How hard it is to sustain three sets, if not five and a match-breaker. My father played at least three times a week most of his life. He was 82 and in amazing shape. Literally a six-pack abdomen and the strongest shortest legs you’ve ever seen. Picture of heart health. And dying of cancer.

Novak won that day but all tennis fans won that day because what we were privileged to watch was way more than a tennis match. It was a symphony.

Later that day, my father had made reservations at the local courts and we played doubles as a team against Jamey and my brother Danny. Jamey is a great player. A natural. He picked up the racket when we started dating and immediately his serve was unstoppable. No training. No lessons. Just natural athletic ability. I like that in a man, I won’t lie. It’s sexy. My brother Danny never really played but can manage a few games. I’m at best an intermediate player as I just don’t play that often. When Dad met Judy Collins at a show, in response to her saying lovely things about my talent, he said, “yes, but she could have been a tennis champion.” And winked. But that was true of him and how he felt about me. Yes, he was proud and a huge supporter, but as I was growing up, I knew I could be closer to him if I’d have chosen tennis more than music. He didn’t really understand the arts. And I held a grudge against him for years for this, until later in life when I realized life is short and he gave what he could give. Which was enough.

So I played with Dad as my partner. My serve was shaky at first, but the more I warmed up the more reliable it got. I don’t double-fault. I know how to easily lob it in the 2^nd serve, if I must. But I can have a wicked placement with a surprising strength if I can get it in on the 1^st serve. I also play strong from the back court. I can run after almost anything and I have a strong two-handed backhand and a good spin. I still wuss out at the net, but when I’m playing with Dad, I run the net and go for it.

Dad was not fast anymore, but he makes up for it by playing smart. He’s got a slice you can’t return. And once he’s at the net, you’re fucked. But it’s his serve that was his trademark. He’d throw it just a bit above his head, not a long arc, short, then, with a strange twist of his upper body, he’d punch the ball over the net. It would drop and thud and barely bounce. It was slow, but there was some special sauce on it that you couldn’t return it if he was ‘on.’ It was an ugly serve. But it was effective and I was glad he was on my side of the net because I could never return that thing. He pissed Jamey off with that serve, because Jamey is tall and lean and plays fast and long. Jamey can ace you in the corner. But I’ve learned how to return Jamey’s serve. I just have to hold the racquet more tightly and really get my shoulder in it. Strong. With Dad, it’s like chess. You can’t win on strength. There was a lot of laughter, a lot of shit talk, and it was so much fun. And we won.

It would be the last time I ever played tennis with my father. And it was the last tennis match my father would ever play. It was the last Wimbledon he’d ever watch and it was historic. It was the last time my entire family would gather until the memorial service.

There are these moments when my father is so present in the air, almost more present to me now dead than when he was alive. We all see cardinals as a sign. My son, Huck, points them out “There’s Pop, mommy,” and there’s no way he remembers my father except for pictures and videos I’ve shared with him. I spent this week shooting a music video for my song/poem “The Days of Letting Go” that I inadvertently wrote about him. It was a poem and the character I’d imagined was a man driving back from Kentucky from his father’s funeral. But my father and I are so present in that song that, in the end, it was me on that drive in the video. The song will release on September 7, along with the book, The Cardinals. I didn’t’ realize until yesterday that I was shooting the video the same day as the Wimbledon Men’s Final. But of course, I was. I told my friends, the directors, the story of my father and that July 14 day 7 improbable years ago.

They asked me if I played tennis.

I said, “yes, and I could have been a champion player.”

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Amy Speace is an award-winning Americana folk singer and songwriter discovered by Judy Collins. Her songs have been recorded by Ms. Collins and many others and she has won International Song of the Year from the Americana Music Association (UK). Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Working Mother, and Salon.com. She received her MFA from Spalding University and teaches English at Cumberland University. She resides in Nashville, Tennessee, with her son, Huckleberry, and her dog, Dusty Springfield.

The Cardinals, coming Sept 1st with Red Hen Press , is her debut poetry collection.