Page 7 of Breakpoint
“You’re late,” Jaz hissed, lest Daniela forget.
She just shrugged her shoulders. “Traffic. Besides, it's not like I was the one who was driving here.”
“Well, tell your team to be more efficient. Let’s go.”
Daniela strode over to the bench like she didn’t have a care in the world with her coach. She thought she remembered Mike saying his name was Tom and he carried her tennis bag, placing it on the ground beside her. Daniela pulled her shoes out of the bag and tied them so fucking slowly, likely just to piss Jaz off even more. After debating over five different rackets, Daniela finally selected one and walked to the other side of the net.
Jaz wondered how she was supposed to partner with this woman on the biggest stage, the Olympics, if she could barely show up to a practice session on time. Doubles you had to rely on her partner and at this point Jaz couldn’t rely on Daniela Kappas to take out her trash.
They started with volleys back and forth to warm up. The air crackled with tension already as each woman eased into the warm-up, their bodies loosening, their minds sharpening. Every movement, every glance, was laden with meaning. The initial volleys were gentle, almost conversational, each strike a word in an unspoken dialogue of ‘this sucks.’
Daniela’s feet, seemingly never still, shuffled and danced across the court, each movement precise and deliberate. Jaz matched Daniela’s pace, returning each volley with increasing force, testingthe younger woman’s reflexes and stamina, probing for any sign of weakness.
The pace of their volleys gradually accelerated, thethwackof the ball becoming more insistent, more urgent. Jaz’s grunts, a familiar soundtrack to her matches, punctuated the air, each one a testament to the effort she was now expending. Sweat beaded on both their foreheads, glistening under the bright Florida sun.
“Move your feet,” Jaz snapped under her breath when Daniela missed an easy volley. An obvious rookie mistake.
Daniela clapped back, “Let’s just get this show on the road.”
Jaz prided herself on being a great all-court player, shifting seamlessly between strong baseline ground strokes, thoughtful net attacks, and relentless defense. But her serve was like none other. It was the best in the game and so disguised that opponents never knew if she was going to do a slice serve out wide, kick serve with topspin, or flat serve that was all power straight down the middle.
And for someone who had barely been on the tour a year, Daniela was holding her own. Jaz had to give her credit, in her head and not out loud, that Daniela’s intuition was spot-on. She was adept at anticipating where the ball was going. She mixed it up quite a bit with slices and came to the net. She was tall but more athletic on the court than Jaz imagined for someone her height, making Jaz feel like she had to hit three winners just to get the point.
And Daniela’s backhand wasfuckingdangerous. It was a clean one-handed shot - that she must have learned from her mother, who had a powerful backhand—that she ripped down the line past Jaz several times. Most women played two-handed both ways. Jaz knew Daniela would definitely be at an advantage on the courtonce she really perfected that shot. Though right now she had a lot of raw talent and ambition, and Jaz would not be outdone.
The rally that followed was ferocious. The crisp, cleanthwackof a perfectly struck forehand echoed across the practice court. Each woman pushed herself to the edge, chasing down seemingly impossible shots. Their bodies stretched to their physical limits. The practice was brutal. No, this wasn’t just a practice session; it was a battlefield. And neither woman was willing to be the first to fall. Every point was a miniature war, each stroke a calculated act of aggression. The only certainty was that this brutal dance would continue until one of them broke.
Jaz, driven by a primal need to dominate, unleashed a series of overhead smashes, each one a thunderclap of power. Daniela countered with deft lobs and drop shots. The sound of their grunts echoed across the court, a guttural symphony of effort and barely suppressed rage. They played a game of cat and mouse, trying to wear each other down.
At one point, Dani, frustrated by a difficult return, let out a small groan. Jaz stopped dead, her head turning slowly. “Is there a problem?” she asked, her voice dripping with icy disdain.
“Just serve,” Daniela shot back, annoyance written all over her face.
Jaz picked up the ball, her dark hand against the fluorescent yellow felt, let out a serve right down the middle, and with acrackof her racket. Daniela slammed a forehand that whistled past Jaz’s head, a fraction of an inch from clipping her ear. It was a deliberate near-miss. Jaz, her face a mask of icy control, didn’t flinch. She could see Daneila’s jaw clenched and her hand tightened on theracket to prevent her from launching it at Jaz. She had gotten under Daniela's skin. Tennis was a mental game above anything else, and once the emotions overwhelmed you, the passion turned into rage and followed by a quick meltdown. Jaz was winning the mental warfare, and they all knew it.
“Ladies.” It was Chris, her agent, cautiously speaking and breaking up the stare-off. At some point, Kira and Chris joined to watch this spectacle, but likely strategizing the next steps of the impact of their pairing. “You both need to get down to Miami to do some pre-tournament media.”
They continued to stare daggers at each other, neither one of them willing to break. Jaz finally turned and walked towards her bag to grab a protein shake. She had nothing to prove to this woman. She didn’t say bye, merely walked inside her home to grab a quick shower. Jaz knew they were going to be a volatile cocktail, held together by a shared dream of Olympic gold. Whether that fragile bond would hold or shatter under the pressure of the games remained to be seen.
The behemoth black SUV rumbled down I-95, its engine groaning under the weight of six passengers. The air inside was thick, not just with the humid Florida air seeping in, but with the unspoken tension between Jaz and Daniela crammed within.
Mike, ever the mediator, had thought a joint drive to Miami would foster camaraderie and allow the teams to get to know each other better. Instead, it felt like they were transporting two warring factions in a very expensive, very cramped prison. Normally, Jaz enjoyed the drive into Miami to participate in this tournament. Being only a ninety-minute drive to the tennis grounds from her house, she loved that she got to recover at home and sleep in her own bed each night. But right now, she wished she could be anywhere but stuck in an SUV with Daniela, her coach and agent.
Especially the agent.
Who. Would. Not. Stop. Talking.
The only sounds louder than the strained silence were Chris’ increasingly forced attempts at cheerful small talk. “Jaz you excited for the clay court season?”
“No,” Jaz responded as she stared out the window with a steely gaze. She hoped to effectively block out any more attempts at conversation.
“Well, Dani is playing Madrid and Rome before the French Open. Maybe we can get an open session done for the media. Allow them to see you both together.”
Jaz had to give it to that guy. He was really trying to make conversation. When all she wanted to do was put on her headphones with her latest audiobook and figure out if Brooke and Emma had gotten back together. “Talk to Kira and Mike about that,” she finally replied.
The minutes crawled by. Finally, Hard Rock Stadium, where the tournament was played, shimmered in the distance, offering a beacon of hope—the promise of separate rooms, separate meetings,and blessed, blessed distance. Jaz was so focused on this awkward ride that she forgot the other drama that she was diving into.
Walking into the tournament grounds, even just on media day, the air crackled with a tension thicker than the Miami humidity. But for Jaz, it wasn’t because of the competition, but becauseshewould be here.
