For me, the good things have always happened on the court. That’s how I finally attracted the sort of help I needed to get to the next level. I was playing in a tournament down the coast, on the Gulf side of Florida. All the elite players were there, the coaches, too. I was probably the youngest player in the tournament—eleven years old and going up against players who were two or three years older, most of them much taller and stronger than I was. I was small for my age, knock-kneed and slight, legs too big for the rest of me, swinging from the heels. I cruised through the early rounds. A cheer went up whenever I won a point. Hearing applause from around the court was new for me. I sat in a chair during changeover, looking to Yuri on the sidelines. He always had words for me, messages. Sometimes it was as simple as him holding up a bottle of water, which meant “Drink, Masha! Drink!” Often, in the midst of a match, I forget to drink, a fact I become aware of only at the end of the day, deep in the third set, when nausea washes over me and the world tips on its axis. Whoa. The bleachers around the small center court were filled. It was a typical collection of parents and siblings and, here and there, anonymous tennis fans.
Among them, unbeknownst to me, was a woman who would change my life. Her name was Betsy Nagelsen. She was in her late thirties or early forties, a handsome woman with short choppy brown hair who had retired from pro tennis not long before. She’d been a top player in the 1970s and ’80s, reaching the rank of twenty-three and winning a handful of singles titles and many more in doubles. Nagelsen had played a game not unlike my own, a baseline power game. Her mom, who lived in Venice and had seen me playing on a local court, noticed the similarity and called her daughter and said, “You’ve got to see the tiny Russian girl. She plays just like you did at that age. It’s like looking back in time.”
Nagelsen worked for one of the TV networks as a commentator, so had seen more players and games and can’t-miss talents than she could probably remember, but still she came down. She sat there all afternoon, watching as I advanced from match to match. What most struck her, I later learned, was not merely the similarities between our games, but my doggedness, the anger with which I played, the way I chased down every ball, driving opponents to the corner of the court. At a few key moments, I have been spotted and championed by powerful women who came before me. They did not do it for a reward. In fact, they did it anonymously, just interested in giving a leg up to a girl who could play. They did it in service of the game. Navratilova sent us on our way to America. Nagelsen sent us on our way to stability.
Betsy Nagelsen was married to Mark McCormack, founder and owner of the premier sports agency in the world, the International Management Group, IMG. Not only did IMG represent the best tennis players in the world—it put on and produced some of the greatest tennis tournaments, including Wimbledon. IMG would eventually come to own Bollettieri’s academy and other academies and schools involved in other sports, including football and baseball. These days, IMG is much without peer, representing some of the best athletes in the world.
McCormack, who was almost thirty years older than his wife—he was in his seventies when I came into the picture—had built the agency from scratch. It grew out of two friendships. In the 1960s, McCormack was friends with the golfer Arnold Palmer. They were among the top athletes in the world, at the peak of their sports, yet, McCormack noticed, they had trouble making real money. McCormack, who was a lawyer and a financial guy as well as a sports nut, talked it over with Palmer. He believed he could use their fame as leverage, and get them paid. It was this sort of basic transaction that built IMG in its early years. In the end, Palmer, greatly enriched by IMG, would serve as the best possible advertisement. Other athletes saw what McCormack had done for them, then came along looking for the same kind of help. And he signed them up. And IMG grew and grew until it became what it is today. It was headquartered in Cleveland, where McCormack had his office. No matter how big his firm grew, no matter how many clients he took on, it remained rooted in that first simple idea. You invest in athletes when they are young, put them on a firm footing, and let them blossom. When they succeed, IMG prospers. For every ten kids they scout and sign, only one might make it—but that’s enough.
Nagelsen did not come down to meet me after the tournament, or talk to Yuri. She went home and called her husband instead. She said, “There’s a girl here in Florida, a tiny little Russian girl—you’ve got to send someone down to see her. She’s going to be a star.”
McCormack contacted Gavin Forbes, the tennis guru at IMG, who had been a good player and was known for his terrific eye for talent. He could discern the great from the seemingly great player, could tell who had that extra gear, that other thing.
I’ve asked Gavin if he remembered the first phone call about me. He laughed and said, “Not only do I remember it—I wrote about it in my diary.
“One afternoon, Mark McCormack’s wife, Betsy Nagelsen, called me out of the blue and said, ‘Gavin, there’s a Russian girl playing tennis down here in Florida—she’s beating all of the other players. You’ve got to send someone to see her right away, before word gets out. She’s sensational. She’s going to win Grand Slams.’ Betsy had been a world-class player and she knew the game inside out, so of course I took that call very seriously,” Gavin told me. “But, to be honest, I get dozens of calls just like that every week. Somewhere, someone has always just discovered the next great player, and she’s gonna do this, and she’s gonna do that. And I get myself out of the office and go and I see them, because you never know, but ninety-eight percent of the time what you see are nice kids and good players, maybe very good players, but there’s a big, big difference between very good and extraordinary.
“When I asked Betsy for more details, more information, her answer was strange,” Gavin went on. “It was just different than what you normally get with the young female players. Most of them are managed by their mothers—tennis moms. But Betsy told me it was your father who worked with you, that his name was Yuri, that you’d come from Russia, just the two of you, when you were very young.”
“Where’s the mother?” Gavin had asked.
“She is still in Russia,” said Betsy. “Come down and see this girl,” she added. “You won’t regret it.”
“I set up a kind of audition for you at Bollettieri’s academy,” Gavin explained. “You would hit back and forth with some of the pros, then play a few points with another girl, an older girl we had picked out. The first thing I really remember is seeing your father walking down a little path at the back end of the academy. I introduced myself, and we started talking. Yuri kept calling me ‘Mr. Gavin.’ And I kept telling him my name was Gavin. ‘Just plain Gavin.’ I asked him, ‘Yuri, how did you end up here, so far from home?’ And he said, ‘Well, Mr. Gavin, I will tell you. I realized, when my daughter was very young, around four, five, six years old, that she had a very special gift and a passion, and I could not ignore that. So I left everything behind and went along as she followed her dream. I have moved to the United States and I want her to be a tennis player and not just any tennis player. I want her to become the greatest tennis player in the world.’ That’s how it started. I said, ‘OK, great. Let’s go watch your daughter play.’