The next few days are heavy and humid. In the qualifiers, Fabio wipes the floor with two teenagers but then wobbles in his first-round match. He looks unbalanced in the first set and struggles to find a rhythm, and loses the set after being broken twice. At changeover, Julian sees him bent over his knees and a towel over his head. Weird way to reset, but whatever works works, he thinks. In the second set, Fabio physically adjusts his grip with his left hand before he serves. He holds to love and takes an early break, and takes the match to a decider. His opponent runs out of steam by the third set, which then Fabio takes with no considerable effort.

That evening, they’re watching an old Ivanov-Navarro on YouTube in the hotel, sitting cross-legged on the two ends of Julian’s bed, the laptop between them. Fabio takes a long sip from his water bottle and offers up the lesson of the day on his own:

“It goes so well when I remember to enjoy the game.”

Julian reaches out to ruffle his hair.

Fabio speeds past the next round and then grinds through a three-setter in the quarter-final which stresses Julian out more times than he can count. He goes into the semifinal tired and sore and loses to a Spanish clay court specialist. Julian lets him burn through the anger, and in the evening Fabio happily follows Julian around the city for some last-minute sightseeing.

They arrive back at the hotel slightly tipsy. Fabio throws himself onto his bed, bouncing with the momentum, and kicks his shoes off. Julian sits down on his own bed more gingerly. He toes his shoe off too, covered in a thin film of dust from the cobblestoned streets. He extends his right leg, rubs at his knee, vaguely aching.

“We still need to talk about the match, you know,” he says softly.

Fabio groans and hides his face behind his forearm.

“We already talked about it,” he protests.

“You spent half an hour going on about what a fucking disaster it was,” Julian says calmly. “Now we’re going to talk about the positives.”

Fabio removes his arm from his face and wedges it under his head. He turns his face towards Julian.

“What positives? I got my ass kicked.”

“In the semifinal,” Julian says, exasperated. “That’s huge, Fabio.”

Fabio blinks at him. Julian can see the corner of his mouth twitch. He continues listing off the praise, counting them on his fingers.

“Those forehands down the line were so good, so clean. You took him to a tiebreak in the first set. And those slices you did at the beginning of the second set? Delicious.”

Fabio is grinning now, glowing at the praise.

“Now you say at least one thing,” Julian instructs. Fabio’s face becomes serious as he thinks about it.

“I think my footwork was good in the first set. I felt really fast.”

“Well done,” Julian smiles at him softly. “We’re going to do this after every match from now on.”

“Even if I play like shit?”

“Especially then.”

Fabio gives an easy laugh.

“Now go to sleep,” Julian urges. “Tomorrow morning they’re kicking us out of the hotel.”