You don’t hear the call. Not really. You feel it.

Game, set, match.

Wimbledon Champion.

The words come through like underwater sound—muffled, distant, unreal. You stand there for a beat, racket loose in your hand, and stare at the green rectangle of court like it might rewrite itself. But it doesn’t.

You won.

You won Wimbledon.

It rushes through you all at once. You drop your racket, fall to your knees, press your fingers into the grass that’s always felt like home. You’re crying before you even realize it—tears hot on your cheeks, breath punched out of you in shuddering gasps that don’t feel like your own.

You don’t know how you get to your feet.

Or how you make it to the net.

Or how you manage to walk, step by shaky step, toward the player box.

But you do. Because one face is waiting for you there.

Andrea.

Her arms are folded, shoulders squared. Stoic. Sharp-eyed. Like she’s still coaching you from across the court, watching for cracks, for complacency, for anything less than absolute focus.

But her mouth. It’s trembling. Just slightly.

You reach her, and the breath leaves your lungs again.

She doesn’t lean down to meet you. You have to climb, two steps up, until you’re eye level, until you’re standing in front of her—grass-stained, trembling, victorious. There’s a moment where no one says anything. Then—

“I did it,” you whisper. Your voice is hoarse.

Andrea just stares. Her jaw clenches. You can see her fighting herself, the way she always does, like emotion is an opponent she’s never let win.

“You did,” she says. “You did.”

And then—then—she pulls you in.

It’s not delicate. It’s not performative. It’s solid. Fierce. A hand cupped at the back of your head. Another around your shoulders. She smells like leather and rain and the chalk of old courts. And for a moment, she just holds you.

“I told you,” she murmurs into your hair, “I told you if you listened, if you fought—you’d be one of the greats.”

You nod, face buried in her shoulder.

“You made a mess of that first set,” she adds, voice catching.

“I know,” you sniff, laughing through it.

“But your mind was steel in the third. That was you. That wasn’t luck. That was you.”

You can barely breathe.

And then she does something she never, ever does. She presses her lips to your temple.

It’s brief. Almost imperceptible. But it’s there. A lifetime in one second.

You pull back, stunned, and she clears her throat, eyes already scanning you like she’s checking for injuries.

“You’re limping. Ice tonight. Stretch properly. Don’t—”

“I love you too, Andrea,” you say, wiping your cheeks.

She rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t deny it.

And then Jannik’s there.

He’d hung back, not wanting to cut in. But the second your eyes meet his, he smiles, arms already open. You fall into him, both of you breathless, exhilarated, undone.

“You did it,” he says into your ear. “You actually did it.”

You pull back just far enough to look at him, eyes wide, still shimmering. “You saw the drop shot?”

He grins. “Perfect.”

“Better than yours?”

“Don’t push it, cara mia."