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The text came the night he won Wimbledon.
He was at the Champions’ Dinner, seeking reprieve in the washroom from the relentless onslaught of congratulations, when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and missed his next breath.
CARLOS ALCARAZ
CARLOS
Congratulations again Jannik! 😁👊 You played amazing
Hope you are having fun at the dinner 😋
Have question for you
Jannik stared at the pulsating ellipses in its little grey bubble. He felt his heart skip a beat when the bubble disappeared for a moment, then reappeared to continue its taunting routine.
CARLOS
Do you want to join my team on vacation next week? 😃
Jannik blinked at his screen. For all the time he spent thinking of Carlos he hadn’t quite expected this, even though he had surely at some point concocted an adjacent scenario in his head. He tried to play it cool, pretending that he wasn’t one heartfelt smiley face away from combusting on the spot.
JANNIK
Not golf, right?
I’m horrible at golf
CARLOS
No golf jajaja
We go near Alicante
Maybe Ibiza if u are down 😏
Jannik knew Carlos loved Ibiza, its loud music and bright lights and things that brought a flush to his face, but he couldn’t see himself there. He would look so out of place, like a fish out of water.
Alicante, though, was a different story. It was where they first met, six years ago when Jannik was 17 and Carlos 15. It was also where Jannik realized, nearly two years ago, that no matter which one of them won, he always lost.
JANNIK
Alicante sounds lovely
Ibiza… i will have to think about it 😅
CARLOS
Ok then it is set?
I see you in Alicante 👊
Don’t worry we will still practice
JANNIK
On the Carlos Alcaraz court 😄
CARLOS
Jajajajajaja
You are embarrassing me
I will ask Juanki to name a court after you too
Jannik reacted to the last message with a laughing emoji, which felt utterly inadequate. It was getting ridiculous, he thought, the effect Carlos had on him, not even his presence but the very thought of him. It was also ridiculous to think that the answer to Carlos’ question was anything but forgone the moment it was asked—Jannik was going to say yes. It would have killed him to say no.
Telling his team would be the easy part. It was the media that gave him a headache. The press was going to find out about the trip. It was less a matter of if and more a matter of when. He’d learned over his seven years on tour that the best way to deal with nosy reporters was to tell them what they already believed they knew. Yes, I visited Carlos in Spain to do some hitting. Yes, we also went to the beach to relax. Yes, I am going on dates with a model I met a couple months back.
All of it true, just enough to satisfy the public’s entitled need to think they know. If only they knew.
He saw the way Carlos’ gaze followed him in the locker room, the way his eyes fixed onto him in a crowd. And he was certain that Carlos saw him, too—the flashes of acknowledgement in his bright hazel eyes, the gleam behind them when they met at the net, hands lingering on each other for just shy of too long.
We have a great friendship off court, they would say to the cameras, none of the journalists any the wiser to the way Jannik’s heart stopped every time someone mentioned Carlos’ name.
And Carlos, the way he said Janni with almost sickening familiarity—
Jannik knew it, Carlos knew it. Their teams and families knew it. Yet no one dared pierce the long-suffering silence, knowing what they had at stake between the two of them.
Decades of legacy rested upon their shoulders, after all, the past, present, and future of tennis all at once. They hurtled towards what some might call destiny in the manner of a pair of shooting stars, igniting their paths with promise. In the face of such circumstance, who would dare upset the delicate equilibrium between them?
Two days later, against his better judgement, Jannik found himself on a plane to Murcia.
He was nervous the whole time—nervous about being recognized, about being seen without his team en route to the place his rival famously resided. More than that, he was nervous about seeing Carlos, away from the show courts in this new light cast by the six more matches played between them, and by the little insanities Jannik picked up along the way.
He managed to make it to Spain without being recognized, a small miracle. His stroke of good luck continued when he needed to share his identity to rent a car, and the woman behind the counter graced his license with merely a cursory, disinterested look. By noon, Jannik was behind the wheel of a modest sedan and on his way to meet Carlos at Juan Carlos Ferrero’s tennis training center.
The drive was about an hour and a half and took him through the Spanish countryside. The landscape was dry and austere, low mountains in the distance baking in the glaring sun. Jannik simulated conversations in his head to pass the time.
“Hi, Carlos.”
No, it would be weird to say his name. Jannik felt like he didn’t address Carlos by name that often.
“Hi.” Too simple.
“Hello.” Too formal.
“Hey.” Too American.
“Hi, good to see you again.” He landed here.
Jannik rounded the final turn and pulled into the driveway leading up to the Ferrero Tennis Academy with nothing but a handful of meager greetings to show for his time spent on the road. He parked the car with all the others and texted Carlos: I’m here.
Within seconds, a response: Coming.
Jannik got out of the car and positioned himself into the performance of a casual slant against the hood. He pretended to scroll on his phone until he heard the familiar rhythm of Carlos’ footsteps.
“Janni!”
He turned. Carlos was jogging down the path towards him, one hand outstretched, his face split into a broad smile. Jannik felt an uncontrollable tug at the corners of his own mouth.
“Hi, Carlos,” he said, pulling the Spaniard into a half-hug. “Good to see you again.”
“Did you even see your family before seeing me?” Carlos joked. “Of course, I’m sure they were there to see you win.”
Jannik nodded, still smiling. “Yes, I’m glad they didn’t go to London for nothing.”
Carlos punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Not like my parents, right?”
“Your parents were still very proud of you,” said Jannik, and this must have been true—he had seen Carlos’ parents in the stands, beaming even as they watched Carlos lose his title defense. It was easy to see where Carlos had gotten his smile.
Carlos led him down the path towards the facilities. It seemed to be a quiet day at the center.
“Where’s your team?” Jannik asked. He liked—an understatement—being alone with Carlos but he didn’t expect the good fortune to last.
“They come tomorrow,” said Carlos. “Today is just us.”
He didn’t elaborate. Jannik felt the familiar squeeze of want in his chest but said nothing.
They decided to hit for a bit first before heading out to a place Carlos insisted on keeping a surprise, practicing for about half an hour under the scorching Spanish sun. Normally, these conditions would have been a nightmare for Jannik, but today the physical discomfort was the only thing keeping his worst tendencies to catastrophize at bay.
A small grove of trees lined the perimeter of the courts, and some of their overhanging branches cast much-needed shade under which they sought reprieve from the heat. Jannik wanted to initiate a conversation but didn’t know what to say, so he busied himself with drinking copious amounts of water.
“How does it feel?” Carlos asked. He put the question out into the air as casually as Jannik set his water down. “Winning Wimbledon.”
“It feels amazing, you know.” Jannik had been asked this question so many times that his media response simply slipped out. He cursed himself internally but Carlos only laughed.
“If I drink every time you say you know,” he mused, “I would die.”
Jannik didn’t know whether to be embarrassed by or endeared to the fact that Carlos had noticed. Granted, everyone noticed. But that wasn’t the same as Carlos noticing it, and pointing it out.
“You know—” He caught himself and the pause made Carlos think he’d done it on purpose, made him look funnier than he was. “You’re not the first to tell me that.”
Carlos laughed again, generously. “So how does it feel? I want to know for real. Not what you tell the media.” He paused thoughtfully, then added, “You can tell the truth. I won’t feel bad about it.”
The truth.
Carlos couldn’t mean that, Jannik thought. How ridiculous—the truth.
The truth was that the rush of ecstasy from the moment was like nothing he had ever felt before. His life’s work, culminating in a single instance, the crack of contact that sealed the deal he made with obsession. The crowd roared—he roared with them, inside, the swell of a great wave of not quite joy but satisfaction filling him to the brim. Jannik Sinner, Wimbledon champion. He was the best version of himself, walking in the hallowed footsteps of his idols, carving an irrevocable place for himself in history.
And beneath all that, something akin to grief.
It was the realization that their every meeting widened the gulf between them. The cold distance Jannik had felt after his loss at the French Open crept up his spine for a moment, a reminder that evening their head-to-head would not draw them closer to one another but only push them apart. They were rivals, first and foremost. Their interests were diametrically opposed, two sides of a seesaw that could never be in balance. For the sport that defined them, for the sport they defined, they had a responsibility to stay that way.
Jannik had pushed that feeling away, tamping his hand down twice on the grass, and won.
Carlos had asked him for the truth, but he couldn’t possibly explain that.
So all he said was, “I’m very happy I won. And there was no better person to share the court with than you.”
That, no matter how complex the feeling, was at least true.
Jannik drove and Carlos gave him directions. Carlos wasn’t great at it, often remembering too late that Jannik didn’t know where they were going. The journey was sharp turns and sheepish laughs.
Eventually, they turned off the main road onto a dirt path. Jannik winced as he coaxed the rental car over the uneven ground. It might not have been his car but he hated subjecting any vehicle to this sort of thing.
“Almost there,” Carlos promised.
He usually had a Spaniard’s sense of time but Jannik didn’t comment on it. They were, in fact, almost there. A couple of minutes later they arrived at a small clearing surrounded by trees, with a small gap between the foliage that marked the beginning of a path. Jannik parked the car and Carlos led them through the brush.
Jannik wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it was certainly not this.
They had arrived at a small cove, hidden from the prying eyes of the rest of the world by towering cliffs on one side and the thick copse of trees on the other. Bright blue water lapped gently against a narrow stretch of soft white sand. Gulls pecked at the ground along the shore, taking flight as they approached. Jannik could only stare, wondering what sort of miracle it took for them to be the only people there.
“Secret place,” Carlos announced proudly. “Not many people know it.”
Jannik nodded, impressed. “How did you find it?”
“My brother found it,” Carlos admitted. “He came to visit me at the academy sometimes. One day he took the wrong turn and somehow ended up here. Then he told me.”
“Thank Alvaro for me, then,” said Jannik. “This is amazing.”
Carlos grinned. “I thought you would like it.”
Feeling strangely bold, Jannik asked, “How did you know?”
Carlos looked away briefly. When he turned back, he was still smiling but Jannik almost thought he looked careful. “Who wouldn’t?”
They spent the afternoon alternating between swimming and laying on their backs on the beach. Carlos was a strong swimmer. Jannik not so much, never venturing beyond where his toes could still touch the rocks beneath.
“Come on, Janni, I save you if you get in trouble,” Carlos said, laughing in encouragement.
Jannik shook the water off his curls, grinning. “Ah, but should you really save me? Your greatest rival?”
“Of course!” said Carlos, emphatically. “I need a rival to be better.”
That was the storyline, it always was.
Jannik refused to think about it, refused to let pointless navel gazing ruin a perfectly fine afternoon. He bit his lower lip and let his feet leave the ground.
“There you go,” said Carlos. “Not bad, right?”
Jannik tried to tread water like the one time he had been taught by his brother, keeping his chin above the surface. Then an errant wave swelled over his mouth and nose at the wrong moment and he quickly floundered his way back to safety, coughing.
“Are you okay?” Carlos asked, swimming to him easily.
Jannik made a face. “It’s so salty.”
Carlos just laughed again. “Welcome to the sea.”
He splashed him. Jannik splashed back, drawn into the playfulness with a sense of inevitability. The sun beat down on them, casting the warm hue of Carlos’ skin in glistening gold. Jannik stared past the water dripping from his hair, at Carlos and the glittering sea.
It was the height of summer, and Jannik Sinner was in love.
The skin on Jannik’s pale shoulders had turned pink, and he could feel the familiar itch of sunburn on his cheeks. His sunscreen sponsors weren’t going to be happy about that one.
They sat with their feet in the surf, long legs crusted with sand, and watched the sun slowly begin its descent below the horizon. Jannik snuck glances at Carlos constantly and carefully, his gaze always fleeing at the first sign of reciprocity.
“Thanks for coming,” Carlos said suddenly, turning to Jannik with that radiant grin of his, white smile bright even in the encroaching twilight. “I’ve always wanted us to take a vacation.”
Jannik’s heart stuttered. “No, thank you for inviting me,” he said, the words almost stumbling on their way out of his mouth. “It’s… it’s nice to spend some time off the court with you.”
Carlos nodded. “Yes, same.” His voice was so steady it made Jannik jealous, the same way he sometimes felt jealous of Carlos’ talent before giving himself a stern scolding. He made it all seem so easy. It was unfair. “We always say, we have a great friendship, but then we don’t actually spend that much time together, right?”
Carlos wasn’t accusing Jannik of anything, yet it made him feel guilty all the same. Guilty enough to draw out another truth, already too many for one day: “Friendship sometimes feels like the wrong word.”
Carlos’ smile dropped and Jannik regretted his words instantly. But he didn’t look upset, just serious.
“My English isn’t good enough to know a better word,” he admitted. “Rivarly isn’t enough, either.”
Silence fell between them as Jannik tried to think of an adequate way of describing them without saying you know too many times.
He couldn’t admit it out loud but he had started to resent the relentless questions he would be asked about Carlos at every presser—what he thought of Carlos on a given day, how he planned to defeat him the next time they met and, of course, whether he considered them friends.
Jannik could never quite decide if he did. He didn’t quite love or hate or need any of his friends as much as he loved, hated, and needed Carlos. He didn’t even see Carlos as often as he did his other friends. They crossed paths only in the halls of arenas, and in the locker rooms as gladiators minutes away from fighting one another to the death. Their previous meeting in Alicante was a strange slip in the story, something the writers wanted to add and shoehorned into the plot without any consideration for whether it made any sense.
Sometimes he told himself it was just tennis. Whatever it was between them, it was just the sport, building them up into what it needed them to be. Rivals, friends, the future.
Again, he thought of how he felt the moment he won Wimbledon. Who was Carlos to him, at that moment?
He took the easy way out and turned to the man in question. “Maybe it isn’t just one word. We can be friends, and we can be rivals. What else?”
Carlos trained his gaze on the horizon, thinking, for a moment. When he looked back, the air between them suddenly felt charged as Jannik realized how dangerous his question truly was. The sinking twilight was drawing its heavy curtains and hiding them behind it. What were they, when the world wasn’t looking?
“You make me better,” Carlos said, softly. “I cannot imagine being myself without you.”
He said this with his trademark earnestness, the sincerity that had captured the hearts of audiences around the world. Carlos allowed everyone to know who he was.
In contrast, Jannik was distant and private, kept his thoughts and feelings away from prying eyes until the people called him a machine—and that was fine, because what was the alternative? To let the tears fall on the clay, to water the red earth with the devastation of that moment? To fall on his back in the grass and stain his white shirt so the whole world could know what the redemptive victory truly meant to him?
To meet the man before him at the net and look at him—really look at him—the way he had always wanted to, like there was no one else, nothing else that mattered?
Carlos regarded him expectantly. It was his turn. Jannik swallowed hard and tried not to overthink it. He was already here, after all; he had already taken the first step, bought the plane ticket to Murcia and left his team at home, rented a car to drive them down to this beach where they could watch the hour turn from golden to blue together. He could say the damn words. But nothing came out.
Carlos seemed to understand the difficulty. The same way he would raise the level of his tennis when Jannik started putting pressure on the scoreboard, he met the challenge now, filling the taut, empty air on behalf of them both. It was his talent, this good-natured grace.
“When I’m with you, it feels… easy, you know.” He looked at Jannik then away, laughing lightly. “Feels simple.”
There it was, that unfairness again—for Jannik, being around Carlos felt anything but. It felt more like being a vessel, unmoored, drifting towards the impending storm. It felt like cupping crystal water in his palm and watching it slip through his fingers before he could lift it to his lips.
For Jannik, being around Carlos was synonymous with being overwhelmed by an ache that began deep within his chest and pulsed through his blood with every beat of his heart.
“Jannik?” Carlos said his name like a question, the persisting silence making him uncertain.
They could not have that—it was too late now for uncertainty. Jannik distilled that complicated feeling into one single decision. He had never been good with words. But he had always let his actions speak for themselves.
He reached around and placed his hand on the back of Carlos’ head, feeling his fingers sink into the bristly dark hair that had grown a little bit too long. He could feel Carlos tense beneath his touch, but despite that both of them drew closer until Jannik could count Carlos’ flickering lashes and feel his shuddering breath on his cheek.
Jannik pressed his lips to Carlos’ with a finality not unlike turning the last page of a book. It was as if every word between them, every page written in their history, had slowly added up to this moment. Quiet, without fanfare, complete at last.
Carlos kissed him back, tentatively at first, as if he hadn’t quite yet wrapped his head around the reality of the moment. His lips were slightly chapped and tasted of the sea. Jannik felt Carlos’ fingers lightly thread through his hair, tangling in Jannik’s curls and bringing them closer together. Between breaths, Carlos’ mouth formed the shape of his name and left Jannik feeling a bit like a man drowned.
“Janni,” Carlos whispered. It made Jannik want to combust on the spot. “You have no idea how long I have wanted this.”
“Since Alicante?” Jannik breathed against his lips. He leaned into Carlos a bit too heavily and sent the both of them tumbling into the sand, still locked against one another. “That last time.”
Carlos paused, bringing his hands to either side of Jannik’s face. “Before that.”
“Was it Miami?” They had both played some of their most brilliant tennis during that match, a sort of fatedness had surrounded the whole thing. One moment in a string of events that set them on the trajectory they were on now, comets caught in the same orbit. Did comets ever collide? Jannik wasn’t sure, but that was the day they did, in spectacular fashion.
“Even before that,” said Carlos. His eyes were always intense when Jannik met them from across the court, but this was a different kind of intensity, fiercely tender and warmly victorious. “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want you.”
Jannik felt those words in his entire body as if they flowed through his very blood, gathering in his chest in a pool of delicate, exquisite heat. He slotted his fingers between Carlos’ and pinned his hand to the sand, then lowered his lips to Carlos’ once more.
“You have me now.”
Something within him clicked into place. He believed with all his heart that he had never said anything more truthful.
The last of the daylight was gone, replaced by a pale distant moon and a blanket of faint, twinkling stars. In the dark, Jannik touched his fingers to his numb lips.
Carlos tucked his head under Jannik’s chin, as if their bodies were always meant to be like this, pressed close against each other, sinking together into the soft sand. It was not unlike all those times they walked together along the net, Carlos bent close to him to catch his words over the din of the crowd, one hand resting over the racing drumbeat of his heart.
“You asked how I knew you would like it here,” Carlos said, his breath feathering against Jannik’s neck, sending a shiver rushing down his spine. “The real story is, I didn’t know for sure. But I always imagine us here together.”
Jannik’s heart felt as though it was about to burst out of his chest again. Carlos surely noticed, but he acted as though he didn’t and carried on.
“Alvaro told me about it the day after you left Alicante, that time.” Carlos laughed lightly. “I was so mad. I could have taken you here much earlier.”
“You knew then? Already?” Jannik asked.
Carlos shrugged and leaned back, looking Jannik in the eyes. “I think I always knew. Part of me knew.”
In life as in their sport—Carlos, always one step ahead. Jannik shook his head in both disbelief and wonderment. “And if Alvaro told you earlier, and you brought me here then, would you have told me?”
“Well, someone very smart said if doesn’t exist.” Carlos broke into a grin. “But I think yes.”
He drew close again and pressed a light kiss to Jannik’s lips. Jannik wanted to melt back into the moment but he had one more question.
“Did you not worry?” he asked. “About how the rivalry would affect us. Or how we would affect the rivalry.”
Carlos inclined his head. “No,” he said. “Like I said earlier, you make me better. So what is there to worry about?”
Jannik waited for the hot flash of envy he had grown accustomed to as a response to Carlos’ preternatural ease, but it never came. There was only something close to relief, a gentle gravity pulling him down into the sand. He always wanted to be a bit more like Carlos, didn’t he? If Carlos wasn’t worried, maybe he shouldn’t be, either.
He leaned in and buried his nose into the junction of Carlos’ neck and shoulder. Carlos pulled him in closer with strong arms and buried his face into Jannik’s hair. The night was rapidly cooling but they held the warmth of the day between them. At that moment, it felt to Jannik as if it was always going to be the two of them. Their duality and the world that revolved around it. He was a fool for never having seen it.
He thought of the interview Carlos gave Tennis Channel ahead of Jannik’s comeback. The interviewer had asked how Carlos felt about Jannik’s return to the tour.
Carlos’ answer was simple. “I need him, you know.”
The gleam of possibility was clear to Jannik now. Carlos had known it this whole time, lived by it, even, this way that they could bring whatever it was between them into balance.
Jannik disentangled himself and tilted his head back to look up at the stars. Focusing on the brightest one he could see, he reached out towards it—
Carlos’ hand met his in the air, and in the touch of their fingertips was his answer.