Carrie Soto Is Back

“My mother rolled her eyes at him as she began to put dinner on the table. ‘I would rather she was kind and happy.’ 

‘Alicia,’ my father said as he stood behind my mother and wrapped his arms around her. ‘No one ever tells stories about that.’”

Javier focuses on Carrie’s potential even when she is a child. Her mother, on the other hand, hopes that this pursuit of greatness will not consume her daughter. It is only years later, long after Alicia’s death, that Javier tells Carrie he wants her to be happy, just as Alicia once did.

“The time I got to spend with him felt like a gift that other kids didn’t get. Unlike them, my time had purpose; my father and I were working toward something of meaning. I was going to be the best.”

Carrie misses out on a lot of typical experiences because she plays tennis. However, she also sees the sport as part of a great quest in and of itself. She is destined to be the greatest, so she finds meaning in that, even if she feels lonely in her career.

“‘Game, set, match: Why do we say this?’ my father would ask me. 

‘Because each time you play, it is a game. You must win the most games to win the set. And then you must win the most sets to win the match,’ I’d recite.”

One essential element in Javier’s approach to coaching is the fundamentals. At the start of the novel, this is shown in the way that he teaches Carrie how to play. He teaches her how to be a confident player who sets out to defeat her opponent. Later, when both Carrie and Bowe play in the US Open, the commentators allude to how their style—their focus on the fundamentals—is a testament to Javier’s coaching, one that persists even after his death.

“‘People are going to call you a lot of things in your life,’ he said. ‘People always call people like us all kinds of things.’”

Carrie learns early on that people are always going to comment on her behavior. Javier here is alluding to his status as a Spanish-speaking immigrant, but Carrie will experience it because she is also a woman. Carrie does not subscribe to the expectation that she must be polite and ladylike, and as a result, she gets a reputation for being mean and cold. This illustrates the double standard that she experiences as a woman compared to the male players she faces.

“I stared at him, unsure. But I needed him to believe that I understood everything I was supposed to be—it seemed like an unbearable betrayal of our mission for me to be confused about any of it.”

Javier initially set Carrie’s expectations for greatness high, and she holds onto those expectations as her career progresses. A shift occurs when Javier refuses to tell her that he’s certain that she can beat Stepanova. Javier’s shifting mindset feels like a betrayal to Carrie and marks a shift: in her character development, and in their relationship.

“I looked out the window and watched as, across the street, a woman came out of her house and got her mail. I wondered if she was having a terrible day too. Or maybe her life looked nothing like mine. Maybe she lived free from all this pressure, this sense that she lived or died by how good she was at something. Was she burdened by the need to win everything she did? Or did she live for nothing?”

Carrie is always under enormous pressure, a pressure that she places on herself. Tennis becomes her life after her mother dies, and it becomes the center of her relationship with her father too. This fundamentally shapes her view on life; eventually, Carrie must deal with the long-term effects of the pressure to reach the top.

“I had her. I could feel the tingle in the top of my head and down my back. I could feel the space in between my joints, the fluidity of my muscles. I felt a hum in my bones.”

This hum of victory is a recurring motif throughout the novel, and it symbolizes Carrie’s sense of confidence in her victory. She feels it when she feels in sync with herself. Though it might disappear—as it does in this first match with Mary-Louise Bryant—it proves to be a useful way of gauging her own play.

“‘Every match you play, you are one match closer to becoming the greatest tennis player the world has ever seen. You were not born that person. You were born to become that person. And that is why you must best yourself every time you get on the court. Not so that you beat the other person—’

‘But so that I become more myself,’ I finished.”

Tennis is literally in Carrie’s DNA; Javier was a professional player himself. It is intertwined with who she is and with her vision of herself. This quote shows the early stages of Carrie’s journey to understanding The Meaning of Greatness.

“It wasn’t enough to play nearly perfect tennis. I had to do that and also be charming. And that charm had to appear effortless.”

This quote illuminates the theme of The Acceptable Standards of Women’s Behavior. Carrie’s attitude and her unflinching competitive spirit are off-putting to the public because of the way that they believe female players should act. She sees other players who are models or who conform more to this double standard; in contrast, she is okay with not being loved by the public. Later in her career, she sees how women rally behind her, despite the fact that she is still so brutally competitive and that she is older than most of the other players.

“It was okay to win as long as I acted surprised when I did and attributed it to luck. I should never let on how much I wanted to win or, worse, that I believed I deserved to win. And I should never, under any circumstances, admit that I did not believe all of my opponents were just as worthy as I was.”

Carrie is held to a double standard because she is a woman. She wants to win, and she makes this apparent. As a result, many in the public—many men in the public—don’t respond well to her. She never conforms to their standards, although she recognizes that they are there.

“I didn’t take a step toward the lockers. I stood there, unmoving. I was waiting for it to feel the way I’d always imagined it would. For someone to hug me and tell me I had vanquished the enemy like the Greeks against Troy…”

Victory against Stepanova isn’t what Carrie imagined. She thought her father would be there, that he would be the one to tell her that she “had vanquished the enemy like the Greeks against Troy.” Celebrating without him feels empty; it is a hollow victory. This is part of the reason that she asks him to return as her coach for her comeback.

“It sends a tiny thrill through me, like I’m a teenager again, staring up at a mountain I have yet to scale, each match a step toward the top. It has been so long since I have felt the perfect ache of climbing.”

As Carrie prepares for Australia, she finds herself back on the path of greatness. Tennis has long been her life, but since retiring, she has not had the same degree of purpose. Getting ready to be the best is what she knows.

“Some men’s childhoods are permitted to last forever, but women are so often reminded that there is work to be done.

And yet here is Carrie Soto, daring to play.”

This quote appears in a letter to the editor entitled “Why I’m Grateful for Carrie Soto.” It points out how men are often encouraged to pursue their dreams while women are told to get to work on household chores or to become mothers. The writer points out how Carrie is defying this double standard.

“I remember this feeling from my twenties—this sense of sheer accomplishment without the weight of the cost. It has eluded me all year, but I finally have it back.”

At this point in the novel, Carrie is finding her rhythm in her comeback. At some level, she recognizes that there is joy in fundamentals—a thought that is very much the result of her father’s approach to coaching. However, she is still preoccupied with victory and afraid of losing.

“Was I the greatest then—at that very moment? Even though I’d also failed here many times before? Which matters more? The wins or the losses?

Despite how hard I am seeking some unimpeachable label of ‘greatness,’ it doesn’t really exist. I do know that, on some level.”

Greatness is an amorphous concept for Carrie. She ties her greatness to her record for having the most Slams, but realistically, she knows that there are a thousand subjective ways to quantify “greatness.” Although she recognizes this, she cannot let go of the idea that she must be “the greatest,” and her struggle to attain a vague ideal influences most of her actions throughout her life. She cannot find inner peace until she identifies what “greatness” means to her.

“I keep thinking, I don’t cry on the court. I don’t cry on the court. 

But then I think, Maybe it’s a lie that you have to keep doing what you have always done. That you have to be able to draw a straight line from how you acted yesterday to how you’ll act tomorrow. You don’t have to be consistent. You can change, I think. Just because you want to.”

Carrie doesn’t want to accept that time has passed and that she has changed physically. She wants to play just like she always has and win just like she always has. Coming back to tennis has caused her to take on the mentality she had when she first played, but slowly, she starts to open up. Allowing herself to cry after winning in the round of 16 at Wimbledon marks a huge step in her progress, as she recognizes that it is alright for her to shed her cold, unfeeling image.

“I am sweating and breathless. I look at my watch. I’ve been out here almost three hours—but I would have sworn it was twenty minutes. And for one brief moment, it feels like I am Carrie Soto.”

In London, Carrie finds more of a rhythm as she plays on grass courts, a surface on which she excels. She feels like herself and revels in it. So much of her identity has been tied to tennis and to her performance, but she has not yet allowed herself to focus on the joy of the game rather than the winning.

“I am so grateful, right now, for every match and every win and every loss and every lesson that I have behind me. It feels so good, right now, to be thirty-seven years old. To have figured at least some things out.”

Carrie rarely feels grateful for her age when she returns to professional tennis. However, as she plays a much younger player, she realizes just how much she appreciates her years of past experience. This is a small sign of Carrie’s growing contentment—with herself, and with her place in the world of tennis.

“The finalists were Andrew Thomas and Jadran Petrovich, neither one of whom would set a record by winning. We live in a world where exceptional women have to sit around waiting for mediocre men.”

Women are constantly held to a different standard than men. When Carrie wins Wimbledon, she has to wait for the men’s tournament to end before the gala begins. At the gala itself, she has to deal with the extremely condescending winner of the men’s championship. He discounts her experience in having won Wimbledon nine times more than him simply because of the differences between the men’s and women’s competitions. This man would never be willing to view her as a great Achilles, and such an attitude is nothing new to Carrie.

“And I wonder for a moment why I have spent all my time worried about losing things, when there is so much here.”

Carrie has held Bowe at arm’s length for the entirety of the novel. After they first sleep together, she tells him to leave; she does not get attached to men for fear of getting hurt and being left. This quote happens when she finally allows him to stay. Although there is risk in opening up, Carrie is finally managing to overcome her Fear of Losing—in this case, of losing the man she loves.

“‘So many statistics,’ I say. ‘Good God. It is exactly what my dad said all those years ago. You just pick one randomly and decide that’s the one you’re committed to. But when you take a step back, how can you say one means more than another?’”

Carrie has linked her own greatness to her Slams-winning record. But by the end of the novel—especially at the encouragement of her father—she comes to recognize that even statistics are subjective. She will never be “the absolute greatest” because there are too many ways to measure greatness. It is not sustainable for her to come back and play every time her record is at risk. Instead, she has to find joy in the game itself and in her playing of it. Ultimately, that is what makes her a truly great player.

“I pick up the notebook and put it back in the locker. If I win this tiebreak, it will be because I know how to beat her on my own. And if I don’t, it will be because she is the better player. This is the test I asked for.”

The test between Carrie and Nicki at the end of the novel is a pure one-on-one match between two exceptionally talented women. Carrie at first had no doubt that she was better than Nicki, but she has come to realize that Nicki might just be the better player—and that this is okay. By putting aside Javier’s notes, Carrie surrenders herself to finding out once and for all. Javier’s support has taken her as far as it can—the rest of Carrie’s growth is up to her alone.

“And for the first time, I know something as terrifying as it is freeing.”

Carrie is finally able to let go of the need to be “great.” She recognizes that Nicki, too, has a deep connection to tennis, and it frees Carrie to understand this. Carrie’s victory comes in the form of self-acceptance; she finally knows what being “great” means for herself, and the fear of losing can no longer prevent her from finding joy on the court.