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“Did you feel more sure of the match when you were up 5:1?”
Jannik replies, “No, I never count him out.”
As much as it pained him to lose, he meant those words. There were many traits he admired in Carlos: his talent certainly, his ability to draw the crowd in, his sheer exuberance, and most of all, his desire to win. He never gave away a point.
There are some people who may disagree with this; Jannik wasn’t immune to what tennis commentators and some fans had been saying about Carlos since Cincinnati.
Unfairly saying, he pondered.
Jannik was never one to focus too much on records or trends in tennis, but he heard the rumblings in the tennis world that Carlos hadn’t won a tournament since Wimbledon.
How ridiculous. As if winning Wimbledon wasn’t a feat in itself.
In the past few months as he’d improved, ascended, and won the Australian Open, he began to understand Carlos in a way he hadn’t before. The pressure, the expectations, the endless barrage of questions – it never stopped.
He was able to shut them away slowly, building up a wall around himself that was necessary, but Jannik was beginning to know Carlos well enough to know that Carlos felt everything.
This was another trait he admired in Carlos – he felt things deeply.
He noticed the way that he listened to the crowd, goaded them on, and made them fall in love with him.
He noticed the way he cried before his match with Felix, wishing he could reach across the screen and reassure him: These people don’t know anything. You have nothing to prove to them.
Since Alicante, he noticed the way his eyes lit up when Jannik spoke to him, and the intensity of Carlos’ focus disarmed him sometimes.
Carlos - Charlie, internalized everything and felt it deeply. He loved that about Charlie. He envied this as well.
So when people challenged Charlie’s talent, skills, or desire to win, he knew they were wrong. You never count out Carlos Alcaraz.
When they met at the net after their blistering Indian Wells semi-final, he was even more sure of this.
When Charlie asked him about his wrist, Jannik kindly shrugged it off. Charlie had finally proven all of the critics wrong. Never count him out.
Even though this had come at the expense of Jannik’s coveted second Masters, and to a lesser extent, his win streak, he knew what this meant for Charlie.
So, despite his pained wrist and the pain of loss, he told Charlie, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll see tomorrow.” And tried at a reassuring smile, though he probably failed to reassure him.
Still thinking about the warmth from Charlie’s hands that lingered on his stomach after the match, Jannik texted him after his press conference.
“Go get 'em tomorrow, Charlie. Never let them count you out.”