The first serve of the 2023 Guadalajara Open

The glamor of evening gowns, cocktails, and the purple carpet is proof that the Guadalajara Open, a WTA 1000 event, gathers only the best female tennis players worldwide—all of whom hope to achieve unprecedented victory. 

Serve.

                                     Backhand swing.

Smash.

                       Echo.

The ball bounces before colliding with a racket and projecting toward the next hit. Echo. The stifled screams are like groans from beyond the grave.

Pause. 

Below my feet, a carpet crosses the floor inside the Santander Performing Arts Complex (Conjunto Santander de Artes Escénicas). I hope to recover the echo of that ball, but for now, two staff members approach us: Do you have a press pass?  Are you here for the Guadalajara Open’s purple carpet? In a couple of minutes? Perfect, thanks.  

The glamor of evening gowns, cocktails, and the purple carpet is proof that the Guadalajara Open, a WTA 1000 event, gathers only the best female tennis players worldwide—all of whom hope to achieve unprecedented victory. 

Karolína Plíšková, a Czech player, was present on the purple carpet. 

We walk; I observe the shoe soles traveling across the surface of the carpet and I imagine being one of them, one of those great tennis players who will soon move across this same path and greet event staff with an affable smile, behind them the constant banging of ice and alcohol inside of cocktail shakers, and the clinking cut glassware with stirring sticks between laughs and incomprehensible exclamations.

I think that Diana, my co-worker, could be thinking the same as me. I look at her, but no, she is somewhere else; I’m not sure where, exactly. 

Play.

I return to the sound of the ball.

Serve.

                              Thwack!

                                                                Thwack!

I try to imagine one of the tennis matches that I have seen in my life but the most I can remember with precision are the sounds, the rhythmic impact of the ball shifting from rival to rival, and those almost involuntary groans that indicate the effort that each tennis player exerts when moving the racket. 

                                                        Thwack!

Even here, the sound of heels crashing against tile is drowned out by the wave of murmurs and regional music blasting from the speakers. We all wait for the top players in the tournament. People laugh, perhaps making their own match predictions as they clink their cut glassware with Casa del Sol tequila or drink their luck with a swig of Amstel Ultra.  

Ajla Tomljanovic, the Croatian-Australian tennis player, at the opening of the 2023 Guadalajara Open.

It is, in a few words, a friendly, organized, and fun purple carpet event, a free space where I can suddenly find myself at arm’s length from the competitor Leylah Fernandez, or my gaze can cross paths with Ajla Tomljanovic’s serene face. 

Inevitably, I remember my figure skating competitions, those days as a high-performance athlete, with the pressure, the certainty of expectations falling on my shoulders, and the three slow breaths to calm pre-game nerves.

That empathy leads me to believe that the minds of those women are a bit further away from the Santander Complex (Conjunto Santander), they are in the place that I imagine, where the ball’s echo goes after shooting out from the backhand swing; their minds are on the tennis court. 

Diana goes from one side to the other and goes up and down the stairs that divide the interview rooms from the cocktail lounges. I try to follow in her steps, but she is faster, barely looking at me as she passes by. Then, I know her head is also on the court; she imagines shooting the camera from one end of the court as the match is about to be won and quickly capturing each carefully executed movement.  

Tennis is a sport of precision. Diana is the player who puts her faith in the precision of the camera shutter, the perfect ambush for any of María Sákkari’s serves. 

Serve. 

           Flash.

Smash. 

            Camera click.

To calculate the force required to hit the ball.

And to adjust the lens to capture the desired image.

As night falls, the match ends. The purple carpet has been removed. Our shoes squeak in the parking lot like those of the tennis players on the court, but there is no bouncing ball, nor groans that demonstrate effort. I look at Diana again, she walks with a slower step, her mind now lands in a dark city, she knows she is headed towards home, having played the first serve of the 2023 Guadalajara Open. 

Traducción: Alina Samadhi Lugo

Texto de: Melanie Gómez