Julian squints against the copper-coloured dim of the restaurant. He can't see well in this kind of half-light. What's lacking in illumination, it makes up for in volume though, the clatter of the pots and pans from the kitchen filtering through the conversations of the diners. Julian can barely hear what Luca is saying. He pulls out a heavy oak chair, and it drags on the terracotta floor. It's all a bit overwhelming — he's sweating under the collar of his polo shirt.

Fabio and his father arrive nearly fifteen minutes late. Fabio is wearing a white shirt, neatly ironed, that's slightly too long in the sleeves but too tight in the shoulders. His father, Salvatore, is short and stocky, with a dark complexion. He apologises profusely in Italian and Julian gleans that the car wouldn't start. Fabio stands there looking sullen, not saying much.

Aperitifs and red wine is poured for everyone except Fabio, who sips at his sparkling water demurely. The antipasti are brought out, and when Julian digs into the caponata, he almost tears up at how good it is. The group dynamic unravels immediately. Salvatore talks to Luca in rapid-fire Sicilian while Julian and Fabio have a quiet conversation in stilted English.

"I watched you on the TV all the time," Fabio says. "I was happy when you won Wimbledon. Wimbledon was my favourite to watch."

Julian asks him about the surfaces he likes to play.

"I like grass," he says thoughtfully. "Of course I like clay the most. I don't like hard court."

"I'm right there with you," Julian smiles, and Fabio gives him a grin. Then his expression turns solemn. He casts his eyes down and picks at the white tablecloth.

"I'm sorry you got injured. I was sad when you retired." Something in Julian's chest constricts a little. "I hope Thiago never retires," he says, with the mournfulness of a child, and Julian can't suppress a smile.

"Fabio!" Luca attempts to take back some control over the conversation. "Do you want to know why we invited you here? We have a question to ask you."

Fabio stops mid-bite, lowers his fork back into his plate. He raises an eyebrow, his face completely blank. He shakes his head slightly. Julian can tell he has no idea what to anticipate.

"How would you feel," Luca stops, and pauses for a second to take a sip of his wine, and, as Julian knows full well, for dramatic effect, "about Julian being your coach?"

A deafening silence descends onto their table. Salvatore leans forward in anticipation, his glass of Limoncello momentarily forgotten in his hand. Julian guesses Luca must have filled him in at some point. The seconds tick down in silence. Then Fabio breathes in deep and unloads a series of expletives onto Luca in Italian. As far as Julian can tell, the gist of it is something like,

"Have you lost your mind, Luca? Where do you get your ideas from, Julian Foster my fucking coach? I don't have that kind of money. I can't even take my car to get fixed. How the fuck am I supposed to pay a Grand Slam winner to teach me how to hit a fucking ball?"

"Basta, Fabio," Salvatore scolds.

Fabio goes quiet and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. His cheeks are flushed with anger. Julian, surprised, covers his mouth discreetly as he thinks it would be crass to laugh. Luca seems unfazed. He replies in English, with a wave of his hand,

"Don't worry about all that stuff. The Academy will pay him until you start winning big. We'll do a budget, draw up a contract so everyone is safe and happy. What do you say? Do you want it?"

The silence continues, and Julian can hear his own heartbeat in it. He has made his decision earlier today, and now it's Fabio's turn. Julian has never considered he might say no, but now, with the moment of anticipation dragging out forever, he feels something unpleasant at the notion that this might not go anywhere after all. Fabio looks up, finally, his chest still heaving as if he had just finished a sprint. He locks eyes with Julian, and despite the urge to look away, Julian holds his gaze for a long time, understanding the question in it. When it feels safe enough to do so, he gives Fabio the smallest nod. A smile breaks out on Fabio's face, spreads from his mouth to his eyes.

"Sì," he says, quietly, still looking at Julian. "Sì. When do we start?"

"Va bene, Fabietto." Luca laughs, visibly relieved. "We start at your match tomorrow. Now finish your pasta, go home and get some sleep."

That night, in Luca's guest room, Julian cancels his return ticket, even though it's too late to get a refund. 

For the final, him and Luca take the same seats at the day before, out front, this challenger's equivalent of a box. He's not talked to Fabio before the match. He doesn't know yet what to say. He's going to observe, he's decided, and they will go from there.

Fabio enters first and gives them a small wave with his racquet. Julian nods at him. As soon as he sees Fabio's opponent, though, he knows it's going to be trouble. He's a German, older than Fabio, with clearly more match experience. Julian stealthily looks him up on his phone, sees a list of challenger titles. This guy knows how to win a final.

Resigning himself to the fact that Fabio is not likely to win today, can lean back and focus on the details of Fabio's game. His serve is powerful for his small stature but not precise, producing aces and double faults alike, and could be made more effective by simply adjusting the range of motion of his shoulder. His forehand is a little loopy and hard to control, overshooting more often today. He has a steady backhand though, and a beautiful slice. He's good at the net, and sometimes he lucks upon a beautiful drop shot that makes the entire audience go "oooh".

His game today is not as varied as the day before, and his opponent is clearly dominating the game. In the first set, Fabio chases down every ball with some level of desperation. He manages to take the set to tiebreak, which he loses only just.

The second set is a horror show, with the same point playing out again and again in an endless loop: Fabio will hit to the German's backhand, who will hit it back down the line to Fabio's forehand, who will try to hit it straight back down the line. This repeats until Fabio's forehand slips and the ball goes out. The unforced errors begin to stack, and as Fabio gets visibly more frustrated, the points get shorter and shorter as well. He loses the second set 6 to 2.

After the handshake, Fabio walks up to them dejectedly, his expression dark, the ends of his hair dripping with sweat. Julian can physically smell the disappointment on him, knows exactly how he feels, being so close and letting it slip away. His own first challengers feel like a lifetime ago now, and yet his body remembers the ache of it, just as sharp as losing a semifinal in a fifth set tiebreak at Roland Garros. Julian watches on as Luca pulls him into a hug, ruffles the hair at the back of his head, piles encouragement over encouragement, soothing words in Italian. He himself is not good at this part, he thinks, he will need to learn.

Fabio pulls back from Luca and gives him a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. Julian tries to catch his eyes but Fabio seems to be doing his best to avoid eye contact.

"Fabio," Julian says softly, and after a moment of hesitation Fabio looks at him, the smile wilting from his face. "I know exactly how you feel," Julian begins, not quite knowing himself what he's trying to say. "I know it feels like the end of the world now, but you really did well today. And the things that didn't go so well now, we can all improve on, together. That's what I'm here for, okay? I want you to relax tomorrow, and we can talk more about the match and how you feel about it on Tuesday."

Fabio listens attentively for a while, then draws his eyebrows together.

"So you still want to train with me?" he asks hesitantly. Julian, surprised, stops himself from laughing at the last moment.

"Well, of course. Did you think I wouldn't? This wasn't an audition. It was a match in which you played well but happened to lose anyway. It doesn't change what we've agreed on. Of course I want to work with you."

Fabio laughs, letting happiness flood his entire face, and then does something unexpected. He launches himself at Julian and pulls him into a hug, and it takes a baffled Julian a good second to remember to put his arms around him. Cultural difference, Julian reminds himself, although Elena, for example, was never much for displays of affection like this — her Mediterranean temperament, if there is indeed such a thing, mostly showed itself during their rows.

Fabio steps back, the corners of his eyes still creased with a smile. "When do we meet on Tuesday? My job starts at 8 so I can —"

"Don't you understand, Fabio?" Luca interrupts. "This is your job now."

Monday morning finds Luca and Julian around the breakfast table neatly laid out on Luca's deck. They are hunched over an Excel spreadsheet, and Luca is already swearing and clutching his temples.

"I hate maths," he complains.

"Hang in there, old man, we're nearly done," Julian soothes, trying to hide his smirk. This is far from the truth, but the strong espresso instills Julian with a childish sense of hope. They're putting a budget together for the rest of this season, and an estimate for the next. Julian insisted on a purely symbolic salary, and no percentage of any prize money for now.

Luca yawns and stretches. 

"Let's think big picture. What do you think he can achieve in the long term, realistically?" He asks then, which Julian recognises as a ploy to have a chat and ignore the spreadsheet for a while.

"Well, what's his ranking now?"

Luca types into the browser and pulls up the page. Fabio doesn't even have a photo in the ATP database.

"Two hundred and fifty five," Luca reads off. "He barely broke 300 at the beginning of the summer."

"Good." Julian thinks for a minute. God, it's a long way; but he started out once somewhere too, didn't he? "I can take him to top five. Not next year, or the year after. But in five years, easy."

"Easy?"

"Well, not easy. You know what I mean. It depends on a lot of things. Injuries, what the new scene will be like now with Ivanov out and Navarro bound to retire eventually. So I can't guarantee world number one. But he'll get close. He's got what it takes."

"My man," Luca laughs and claps him on the back.

"Now give me that," Julian says, reaching for the laptop. "Let's sign him up for all the Challengers that won't break the bank. We'll need to send in his headshot. And why not get him some new gear to get started with?"

On Tuesday, Fabio presents for his new job at 8 sharp. Well, almost. He does his time on the treadmill and his usual stretches, and then he joins Julian on the court. Julian decides to just hit with him today, to get a feel for his serves, the power of his shots. Fabio gears up to serve, Luca standing behind him like an overgrown ball boy.

"Go easy on me," Julian warns playfully. "My knee is fucked."

Fabio laughs and smashes in a rocket of a serve. Julian laughs along.

"Out, I'm afraid."

His second serve goes in smoothly, and they hit the ball back and forth for a bit, the thwacks drumming out a meditative rhythm, stirring up the red dust.

"Show me your forehand," Julian instructs. "Really let it rip."

The forehand is powerful, but, as Julian had noticed on Sunday, unstable. It lands out of bounds way too often. Fabio screws up his nose and wipes his forehead with his wristband. They sit down on the bench for a break, and Fabio drinks from his water bottle greedily.

"Do you want to talk about the match?" Julian asks. Fabio wipes his mouth and nods.

"What do you think happened?" Julian pries gently, as if trying not alarm a skittish horse.

"I don't know," Fabio says, and then stops to think about it. "In the first set I was almost getting to all the shots. Then in the second set I tried hitting it to his backhand because I thought it felt weak. But it wasn't enough and he kept me in one place and I couldn't come up with any solutions."

Julian nods. "You were right in seeing that his backhand didn't generate enough power to hit winners. But he also saw that your forehand was risky, so that's why he kept hitting to that. So he simply waited for your unforced errors to stack up until he won. He won ugly and it was gruelling to watch," he laughs softly. "But it taught us a lesson at least."

Fabio turns this over in his head. He stabs at his shoes with his racquet. "What should I have done differently?"

"You could have used some of the variety you showed on Saturday. Walk him around the court until you can see some space, find an opening."

Fabio nods.

"Wanna try some forehand drills?" Julian suggests. "Let's try to figure out how to dial it in without compromising the force."

Fabio nods again, the hesitation slowly clearing from his face. Julian holds his fist out to him and Fabio bumps it with his own, the first of many more to come.

Luca waves over a student training on the court next to theirs, and asks her to take a picture. That night, in bed, Julian will open up his defunct Instagram that he mostly uses to look at post-workout recipes and he will see a flurry of notifications, leading back to a new post on the Academy's official account that he's been tagged in. There's the photo of the three of them, with Fabio in the middle, glowing with sweat and grinning ear to ear.

New beginnings 💪 we are excited to announce that three-time Wimbledon champion Julian Foster has joined the #romanoacademy team as Fabio Costa's coach! Forza Fabio, we are looking forward to what you achieve together!

The comments on the post are expressions of surprise juxtaposed with fire emojis, as well as congratulatory messages aimed at Fabio, in Italian. Julian navigates back to his notification and glances at the handful of new followers. There's one that stands out, Fabio's profile picture blurry and vague in true Gen Z fashion, his eyes squinted and his tongue poking out from in-between his teeth. Julian presses on the blue button, Follow back.