She knew clay season would break her eventually. She just didn’t think it would happen here. Rome. Third round. Stadium Pietrangeli, framed by statues that feel too heavy to look at. The clay is slow today. Dry on top, dead beneath. Her least favorite kind.

She’s been fighting her own timing since the first set. The ball isn’t coming off her racquet clean. Nothing lands where she wants. Her grip’s too tight. Her forehands fly long, then drop limp into the net. Nothing feels right. It never does on this surface.

But the scoreboard’s right. She’s down 2–5 in the third. She hasn’t held serve in twenty minutes.

She double faults.

Game.

She turns, doesn’t wait for the ball kids. Doesn’t look at her team.

And brings her racquet down, sharp and fast against the ground.

Once. Twice. It breaks clean on the third.

The chair umpire doesn’t even hesitate.

“Code violation. Racquet abuse. Fine: €3,000.”

A few spectators gasp. Some laugh. It doesn’t matter.

She walks to her bench, sits down hard, and stares ahead, jaw locked.

The fine doesn’t sting. It’s not even about the money.

It’s the powerlessness. The way this surface eats her movement alive. The way even her best instincts feel like guesswork out here. Her game is built on timing, on angles, on tempo. Clay makes her play someone else’s rhythm. And she’s tired of pretending she can adapt.

She feels the sweat sliding down her spine. The grit under her nails. The dirt smeared on her legs. She doesn’t wipe it off.

A camera pans to her box. She sees it in her periphery—her coach, tight-lipped. Her physio, still. And Jannik, in a plain white tee, sitting low in his seat like he’s trying not to be noticed. He played yesterday—won in straights. Today, he came to support.

But she doesn’t need support.

She needs control. And this court doesn’t give her any.

She picks up a new racquet. The grip’s fresh, almost too clean. She bounces once on the balls of her feet, then walks to the baseline.

The chair umpire calls time.

And she serves.

She plays the next game like someone who knows she’s already lost. Not because the points are gone, but because the court never belonged to her in the first place. She fights anyway. Of course she does.

But it’s not enough.

Match. 6–3, 4–6, 6–2.

She walks to the net. Shakes hands. Then to the umpire’s chair. Barely acknowledges him. Then off court, through the tunnel. The clay clings to her socks, red streaks against white.

No one stops her.

Not her coach. Not the press. Not even Jannik—not yet.

She doesn’t know if she wants to see him right now. He’d understand. But he’d look at her. That soft, too-honest way he has when she’s hurting.

She doesn’t want honesty.

She wants a grass court. And no clay in her shoes.