Life had never been gentle with you. Growing up while constantly traveling the world with your father sounded glamorous to most people, but in reality it was exhausting, lonely, and often overwhelming. Your childhood memories weren’t rooted in one place but scattered across continents—Australia, Paris, London, New York. To tennis fans, those cities meant glory, trophies, and history. To you, they meant airports, hotel rooms, and never staying anywhere long enough to feel like you belonged.

Your mother died giving birth to you—seventeen years ago, almost eighteen now. You never got the chance to know her, only fragments of her existence passed down through stories and old photographs. Tennis was the first thing placed into your hands, almost before you could walk. A racket, slightly too big, wrapped in your tiny fingers. It was your father’s world, his passion, his language of love. He believed it would be yours too.

For a while, it was.

You grew up on practice courts and in locker rooms, learned to keep score before you learned long division. You loved the game—the rhythm, the discipline, the quiet intensity—but by the time you were ten, reality became impossible to ignore. You had inherited your mother’s genes, not your father’s. No matter how hard you trained, no matter how many hours you spent on court, the raw talent just wasn’t there. You were good. Actually, very good. Just not great. And in a world where greatness was the minimum requirement, that wasn’t enough.

That was why your father had become a coach instead of continuing his own professional career. A former ATP player himself, he poured everything he had into shaping the next generation. And he succeeded—more than anyone could have imagined.

Carlos Alcaraz.

At just twenty-two years old, Carlos already had six Grand Slam titles to his name. A once-in-a-lifetime talent. Your father was his coach, his mentor, his strategist. Which meant Carlos traveled with your dad—and you traveled with them. Tournaments, training camps, press conferences. Your life was an endless loop of matches and movement, always surrounded by men whose conversations never drifted far from rankings, statistics, and tactics.

You loved tennis, but sometimes you hated how it consumed everything.

You weren’t even finished with school yet, homeschooled to accommodate the relentless travel schedule. While other people your age worried about prom or college applications, you worried about jet lag and time zones. You often felt like an observer in someone else’s story, standing just outside the spotlight.

And now, here you were again.

A private jet. Plush leather seats. The low hum of the engines vibrating through the cabin. Your father sat with Carlos’s team, laughter already filling the space as they discussed the recent win. You quietly took your seat, leaning back, eyes drifting toward the aisle.

Then you looked up.

The conversation softened, shifted, as the only truly important person stepped onto the jet.

Carlos Alcaraz himself.