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He’s just gotten back from dinner, he’s still standing in the hallway while taking off his shoes, when Jannik hears his phone ring. Instead of the screen flashing him a ‘Mama’ or ‘Mark’ or maybe even a ‘Simone’ like he’d expected, what greets him there is:
Carlos Alcaraz New
Huh.
Just hours before, Jannik had been glued to the TV while watching the third set of Carlos’ match against Korda play out in favour of the American. A brutal upset. Jannik had felt for the Spaniard that had struggled massively to keep his composure on court.
So he doesn’t really know what Carlos could possibly want from him of all people but… the urge to find it out sits too deep to ignore it. Maybe it’s urgent? He swipes right to accept the call.
“Hello?”
“I am upset.” Carlos’ voice rings through the speaker, no greeting, no socially acceptable start to a conversation between two people that are not really on a casual ‘I’ll randomly call you whenever’ basis.
“Upset at me?” Jannik has to check but the confused tone he gets an answer in, suggests that it’s a silly assumption, “No! Of course not. I barely see you for all tournament. I am Upset at me! And Miami! I hate Miami. Can we get rid of Miami? If we both say we don’t want it maybe they will listen.” The suggestion sounds heart felt.
Jannik has to fight the upwards pull on the corners of his mouth until he realises that he’s alone and no one can see him. He allows himself a small smile before he replies.
“I think I will wait how far I will come before I go and want to get rid of it.”
“Urgh. You hate me.” Carlos sounds like he’s pouting, Jannik feels stupidly fond.
“I don’t.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Good. At least that.” A sigh, short but suffering, “I really wanted to play the final with you.”
“I would like that too,” Jannik admits. They haven’t played a competitive match since Turin last year. A drastic change to the monthly meetings ranging from May to December 2025.
“I am sorry I mess it up,” Carlos sounds a bit sad. Now Jannik is in doubt again whether he is the right person to cheer Carlos up considering now that Carlos is out of the picture, he’s the favourite to win the whole thing, at least ranking wise. He tries anyway.
“No reason to be sorry. I mess up before you in Australia and in Doha.” Losing the first major of the year, the happy slam, the way that he did is not Jannik’s favourite memory but he is on a mission so he lets the slight sting of regret pass through him with his next breath.
“And then I mess up here twice,” Carlos sounds like he’s pouting. It’s a funny image in Jannik’s head. One he can’t get rid of fast enough before he also finds it to be cute.
“Yes but look, now we’re even. Two and two. It’s okay. It happens.”
A snort, “I guess.” He sounds happier again so Jannik counts it as a small win.
“And we don’t know if I will get to the final here,” he continues, “if you win today, I could still lose tomorrow or another day.” He thinks of the draw on his side, it’s still a long way to go. It’s not helping how everyone is obsessed with the possibility of him winning the Sunshine Double.
“I hope you win,” Carlos says and he sounds serious in a way that someone competing for the number one title with you probably shouldn’t be. But Carlos has rarely cared for what he’s supposed to be doing, Jannik muses. Still he comments on it.
“Is that what you should hope for? Not me losing so I don’t gain more points?”
Carlos scoffs as if insulted, “They all tell me to hate you and wish you to lose but I think that is dumb. I want you to win so we can play the finals that will come.” He states, heart on his tongue as always, “And then you can lose to me!” The grin is now audible in his voice and Jannik can feel himself grinning as well. It makes him pause for a moment and wonder when this phone call had become so easy going, so natural. They never do this, why does it feel like this could be a daily occurrence?
“Or I win against you,” Jannik can’t help but suggest because he knows that’s just what Carlos wants to hear. And it’s what his goal is always anyway. The countless practice sessions tailored to counter Carlos’ game style are proof of it.
“I like seeing you try.” The Spaniard replies with a tone that has shifted lower, more serious yet still threaded with the easy-going attitude of his favourite rival. It makes something in Jannik’s guts stir in a way he tries to ignore with purpose.
Carlos lets the statement hang in the silence and Jannik finds himself trying to come up with something to fill it with. “Why you call me?” He regrets the words as soon as they’ve left his lips because they come out more accusatory than he’s wanted them to be. A light hearted tone is simply not his forte. He worries Carlos would take it the wrong way.
“You are the only one that gets it.” Carlos says, voice devoid of any defence or annoyance. Jannik thinks he must’ve underestimated him, Carlos must know him better than he dared to give him credit.
“Because I was number one too?” Jannik asks carefully, finally sitting himself down on his bed, tired of standing and not in a rush to end this call.
“I mean, yes? You know the pressure. But also are like me the most.”
That surprises Jannik. Usually people like to point out their differences. The polar opposites of this rivalry. Fire and ice. Perfection and genius spontaneity. “How so?” He prods curiously.
Carlos hums, not clueless but rather as if collecting the words he want to say, “You understand how it feels to dedicate yourself to Tennis,” he explains, “Like, with everything, you know? When you are on court we are the same- maybe not, not from how it looks but inside I feel like. I just feel like you get me. When you look over the net during a match, we hug after, in the locker room. Always when we talk. I can’t explain but I think we are the same.”
Jannik feels torn between being at a loss for words and the urge to say ‘Thank you’, because being compared to Carlos Alcaraz, especially by the man himself, he believes will always be something good. Something to be proud of. It still sounds weird in his head though, so he goes for something a little more neutral.
“I never saw it like that.”he says, ‘But I like the thought’, is what he keeps to himself.
“Yes, eh, I don’t know,” Carlos sounds thoughtful but still confident, “Maybe I am the only one to think it like that but now I just wanted to talk and I just felt like you would be the right person for me. Because you get me, you know?”
“Okay.” Jannik says, voice thin he feels oddly touched, then, as if lured out by the unexpectedly sweet things, the words escape him on their own;
“I like talking to you.”
Immediately he feels heat prickle under the skin of his cheeks and is immensely grateful that Carlos didn’t choose to video call him.
(Because he’s pretty sure he would have picked that up too.)
A bark of a laugh sounds through the phone that does nothing to offset his embarrassment. But when he talks, his voice sounds earnest, “I’m happy to hear, Janni.” Jannik can hear how the other man is smiling as he butchers the last letter of his name again. Jannik doesn’t like how much of a weakness this version of his name has become for him. How it sounds so soft when Carlos says it. Like something he cherishes.
It feels like his body is betraying him. His chest aches. His fingers curl at the absence of someone to touch.
The intent of this phone call is starting to get lost in the row of admissions they’re sharing with each other, he tries to rein it in after clearing his throat that has grown uncomfortably tight.
“Um, do you, eh want to talk about today?” Tennis. They need to get back to talking about tennis. Anything other than this odd sense of intimacy.
Jannik is in luck that Carlos is quite receptive to distractions.
“I played horrible didn’t I?” The Spaniard asks straight away and Jannik tries to stay honest but diplomatic for his friend, “You’ve played better. But Korda played really good. You were just mentally so out of it, no? What you said to your team… you never really got back to the match how you do often other times. A lot to reflect on, yes?”
“Wow, no sugarcoating from you,” Carlos chuckles and Jannik quirks a smile as well, “If you wanted that you would not call me.”
“True.” His friend agrees easily, “See? You get me.”
Hearing that really shouldn’t make Jannik as happy as it does, “I guess I do.”
“Do you miss me too?” The Spaniard wants to know then.
“Playing you?”
“No. Me. Like- just me.”
“I-“ the air gets caught in Jannik’s throat again, so much so that he feels slightly dizzy with it. He blames his next words on that.
“I do.”
Carlos lets out a small chuckle like the answer satisfied him. It probably did. “We should meet, you know, in Monte-Carlo. You live there, yes? You can show me your apartment.”
Jannik has officially lost the ability to discern in what way he’s supposed to take these words. Whether this is an attempt of working on strengthening their friendship amongst the pressure of their profession or something else entirely, something that feels wrong to even think-
Visions invade his mind without permission.
Visions of Carlos in his home in Monaco.
Sitting on his soft red couch in the living room.
Standing in his kitchen while drinking his good Italian coffee - the one he always brings from home.
Looking at the pictures on his walls.
Smiling at him.
Carlos in his bed-
“Sure.” He says if only to stop his minds from wandering further down a road that shouldn’t even exist there. Shamefully, Jannik knows that the road’s been gaining steady ground since the first time Jannik had lost against the younger man and it had made him cry. 2022, New York. The bright smile on Carlos. The despair inside of him. The bone-deep visceral need to do it again.
“I look forward to it, Janni,” the real Carlos from the present tells him. Jannik wonders whether he’s been cursed by someone all those years ago. A curse that would explain why he picked up the phone without hesitation, explain why he feels like he could never bring himself to hate Carlos, why he longs to see Carlos again even though it could come with the all too familiar pit of pain again.
Because the only conclusion he can come to is that it would be worth it.
“I will cheer for you!” Carlos adds and Jannik can tell that he means it. That he will actually cheer for Jannik to win this whole tournament even though he really, really shouldn’t.
Now he wonders whether Carlos has been cursed too.
“Thank you, Carlos,” his voice feels heavy but he pushes trough, “Take care, I will see you soon.”
“Soon!”
When the line has gone silent, all that Jannik has left to hear is his own heart beat. It’s faster than it should be.
He should shower and go to bed and maybe pick up praying again, he thinks.
The image of Carlos in his apartment haunts him to his dreams.
It’s the happiest he’s woken up in months.