Double Fault

A Tennis Love Story

By Phoenix II

Chapter 1: Pre-Match Warmups

-.-

My story, like so many of the great love stories do, began in Paris.

Only instead of the traditional scenes like the Champs-Élysées, the Louvre, or the Eiffel Tower, my love story began in the 16th arrondissement on the grounds of Le Stade de Roland Garros, and the French Open tennis tournament.

The first thing I noticed about Isaac wasn't his soft, slightly-curly brown hair; his vibrant green eyes that twinkled when he was amused or excited and smouldered when he felt passionate about something; his full-body tan that could only partly be explained by living on the Mediterranean his entire life; or even the way he tended to wear shorts that hugged his very fine posterior.

No, the first thing I noticed about Isaac Benyamin was that he had a tendency to drop his toss arm too quickly on his serve.

As anyone who knows the first thing about the finer points of service mechanics will tell you, more often than not an early drop of the toss arm will see your ball fly long of its target and see you called for a fault.

I noticed this on the practice courts, while my own practice partner and I were stretching out ahead of our pre-first round warmups.

"Who's that?" I asked, jerking my head towards the young man in question.

"I think that's Isaac Benyamin," Derek Langholt, my USTA-assigned practice partner-slash-roommate said. "Israeli, ranked sixty-somethingth. He drew Nadal in the first round, poor bastard."

"Israeli, huh?" I ask. "Anyone going to tell him his service form isn't kosher?"

Derek laughs, before our attention is drawn back to that court. A short-but-thin and balding man has starting shouting at Benyamin in very irate French. At least I think it's irate. I don't parlez-vous the francais.

He does, evidently, because he's started shouting back at the man I can only presume is his coach.

"Brian?"

Derek's hand on my shoulder brings my attention back to what I need to be doing: working on my own game ahead of my first-round match against some young French guy who won a qualifying tournament in Toulouse or somewhere.

In other words, a guy it would be very embarrassing for the 31st-ranked men's tennis player in the world to lose to.

And clay (well, it's not really clay anymore, but they still call it that) has never really been my best surface.

The shouting has stopped by the time Derek and I take our positions across the court from each other, settling into easy forehand rallies (with the occasional backhand thrown in for good measure), and if anything the serves coming off the racquet of Isaac Benyamin now sound positively angry.

"Jesus, he's leaving marks," Derek comments. He's the one on the side of the net that would even give him an easy view of the Israeli. "Whatever that short dude said to him, it must have seriously pissed him off."

Now, I can't resist. I turn my head to look again for myself, and I see a slightly-improved serve form. The hand still drops slightly early, and his muscles torque up so much in the windup that he'll be incredibly sore tomorrow unless he has a good massage tonight, but there's no arguing with the result: a serve that probably tops 150 miles per hour and actually sticks the ball into the court.

With a snarled curse, Benyamin flings his racquet at the fencing and stalks off the practice courts. His gobsmacked coach waits for a few moments before hurrying after him, leaving another man to collect his discarded racquet and bag before hurrying after the both of them.

The ball is left where it landed, right on the line of the service box he was aiming at.

"I hope he's calmed down a bit before he takes the court, or Rafa might not make it to the second round," I say. Derek gives a shaky nod.

"Shit, man, even Roddick never actually hammered a ball so hard it stuck to the court," my partner says.

"I'm not too worried about it," I reply. "I doubt he'll make it to a point where I have to worry about pissing him off that badly during a match."

"Yeah," Derek agrees. "Let me see your serve, then, so I can see whether Jean-Jacques What's-his-face has a chance at making you eat those words."

"I'd make the same offer back," I say, settling into my own service stance, "but you'll be too busy ogling Federer to even have a chance at beating him, even if you play the best tennis of your life."

Derek has the decency to turn slightly red after being reminded of his crush on the Swiss great, and is also possibly distracted enough by pervy thoughts to completely whiff on returning my serve.

-.-

Two days later saw me loitering around Court Philippe Chatrier after finishing off my second-round match in straight sets, ostensibly watching Rafa Nadal dispatch a qualifier from Belgium.

Truthfully, I was staring at Nadal's ass.

What? Derek's not the only one with a crush on one of the best three players in the world. Only mine's slightly less focused on all the aspects that are attractive, and more about how much I would give for just one roll in the hay.

"He's got a very fine ass, yes?" a vaguely-familiar-sounding voice says from behind me, and I whirl around to see the brown-haired, twinkling-green-eyed, slightly smirking, tanned face of Isaac Benyamin.

"I, er, that is to say," I sputter, until the smirk becomes a full-blown smile and the twinkle in his eyes intensifies.

"Your secret is safe with me," he says with a wink. "Though, what's one more on Rafa's long list of admirers of both genders."

"Does that include you?" I ask, surprising myself a little with the boldness of the question.

"I did agree with you that it is a fine ass, did I not?" he questions in response.

"Technically, no you didn't, you just asked my opinion of it with regards to its fineness," I answer.

"Discerning, athletic, and not bad to look at," he replies smoothly. "Alas, since I lost so early I'm leaving Paris this evening. Perhaps I will see you in England, and we can continue this discussion."

I start for a moment, before realizing that after losing in straight sets to aforementioned Rafa Nadal in the first round (only taking one game in the entire match, actually), Isaac truly doesn't have any legitimate reason to be in Paris anymore.

"Yeah, feel free to look me up. I'll be at Queen's for sure, possibly Stuttgart before that."

"London it is," Isaac replies. "Since I'll be in the Netherlands instead of Stuttgart. I tend to avoid the German tournaments."

Well, he is Israeli, I don't suppose I can fault him for that.

"So you'll have your people call my people, or…?" I question, and he replies by tossing me back my own cell phone. I hadn't even noticed it leave my pocket. I hold it up questioningly, and he smirks at me.

"My number's in there. I'll text you when I get to London, we can get together and smack a couple balls around before we hit the pubs."

I'm wondering just how much innuendo he'd intentionally put in that statement as he turns and walks off down the concourse ramp, waving goodbye to me as he leaves. Unless my eyes greatly deceive me, he's put a slight sway to his hips as he walks, to draw attention to his own ass.

It's a very fine ass.

Rafa who?

The roar of the crowd behind me, followed by the chair umpire's announcement "Game, set, match Nadal, 6-love, 6-1, 6-love," sees me take a cue from Isaac and take my own leave of Court Philippe Chatrier. The next scheduled match here is a Polish woman and a Bulgarian woman, and, just, ew.

Derek is waiting for me at our USTA-rented apartment.

"So, I saw Rafa won handily."

"So did I," I reply. "In that I saw he did as well, and I also won handily."

"I was there for yours," he replies. "Or did you not see the handsome blond man with the large American flag in the coaches and family seats?"

"Oh, that was you?" I tease. Derek and I have that easy, teasing kind of relationship. It's the kind of thing you develop rooming with a guy for the better part of five years.

"No, actually, that was a body double I paid to wave the flag for me while I boned Federer in the change rooms," Derek deadpans. "Do you know who you've got next yet?"

"Nope. Their match was still going when I left the complex, 9- all in the fifth."

"Ah well. You shouldn't have trouble with either of them, they're both at least twenty ranks beneath you." He's leaning against the counter rather awkwardly. I'm fairly certain he wants to either change topics or actually leave so we can get dinner and then change topics.

"We going to get some snails, steamed eggplant, moldy cheese and shitty wine, or what?" I ask, cutting the awkward chatter off abruptly. Derek makes a face.

"I don't want to know how you are able to learn the grossest local foods of literally every tournament we travel to, or if you do it just to make me nauseous just before dinner so I maintain my perfect figure by not eating anything but garnish and water."

"Oh, you know it, darling," I say. "Seriously, though, dinner?"

"Well, since there's no player reception or sponsor dinner we're being dragged to tonight, I took some initiative and went looking for a restaurant this afternoon while you were ogling Nadal and chatting up Benyamin." He brushes past me, heading for the door.

"Hang on," I say, tagging behind him. "How d'you know about that?"

"Eurosport trained a camera on you two. Two Top-100 players having a chat during an otherwise ho-hum match is good fodder for the commentators. And I note you didn't deny you were chatting him up." Derek is now out the door, and I follow.

"I wasn't. He might have been chatting me up, but it certainly wasn't the other way around."

"Well then what did he want?" Derek seems unusually snippy, which seems weird because he's never said two words about my love life before; and I've equally ignored his.

"Honestly?" I ask. "I have no idea. He stole my phone before he announced himself, and told me he'd text me when I'm in London for Queen's."

"Weird." There's normal!Derek back. "C'mon, the restaurant's two streets over. Try not to get run over by a moped."

"They don't call them mopeds over here," I chastise him as I jog to catch up with him. He responds by flipping me off.

-.-

My phone buzzing insistently wakes me up just after 7 the next morning. The display tells me it's my manager.

"What is it now, Charlie?" I ask, picking up just before it's about to dump to voicemail and sitting up in bed.

"Past time for you to be up and ready to meet the world, Brian," is the reply I get. Charlie is a morning person, usually at work by 6:30 in the morning regardless of where in the world he is that day.

"Funny you say that, but my clock says it's still two hours before that time." It's an off day. I like sleeping in on those. Sue me.

"Media requests," Charlie says. "Eurosport, NBC and ESPN want to talk to you about your little tete-a-tete with that Israeli guy on Philippe Chatrier yesterday."

I groan. Dealing with the media is the worst, especially since I'm going to have to lie my ass off about what we were actually talking about. Not like I can just go say "We were talking about how Rafa Nadal has one of the top 5 asses of human beings of any gender in the world" on live television after all.

People would complain.

"When?"

"Five minutes each, just after noon."

"Alright, I'll be there," I reply. "Anything else or can I try to go back to sleep now?"

"Your next opponent's Stakhovsky," Charlie informs me. "Tomorrow, 1:30, Court 3. Eat some breakfast." Then he hangs up. I sigh, toss my phone back onto the bedside table, and flop back against the pillow.

I lay like that for a good five minutes before the sun streaming in through the blinds annoys me enough to force me out of bed, muttering curses about sadistic morning people.

-.-

"And now we're joined by the man who is the talk of Roland Garros today, American Brian Carmine. Brian, thanks for being here today."

I chuckle lightly, running a hand through my close-cut black hair.

"Thanks for having me, but I really hope I'm not the talk of Roland Garros, when there's so much great tennis being played."

Step One: Try to deflect attention from whatever it is the garishly-made-up reporters want to talk about.

"That there is, but what we really want to know is what you and Isaac Benyamin were talking about."

Of course, Step One rarely works. So it's on to Step Two: Don't Say Anything Useful.

"Nothing really, he introduced himself, we talked for a bit, we traded numbers and he left."

"What did you talk about?"

Sometimes, they'll press. Usually if they think there's something particularly juicy. Hopefully they didn't show the video they got to a lip reader.

"Mostly about Rafa, how he was playing, y'know? At the end we were making plans to catch up with each other in London before Wimbledon."

"You're both scheduled to play in the Aegon Championships at Queen's Club, right?"

"Yeah, I think he mentioned that. Of course, that's unless I do something really stupid between now and then like break my leg."

"You, meanwhile, have Sergiy Stakhovsky tomorrow in the third round here. The last time you two played he beat you in straight sets at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati last August. Are you worried about tomorrow?"

"Well, the last time we played was also the first time we played," I say. "I think I can beat him, I'm not saying it'll be easy, but any match is winnable by anybody. That's why we play them."

"Very well said. Thanks for your time today, Brian, we'll be back with coverage of Serena Williams' third-round match right after this break. You're watching French Open coverage on ESPN2."

And with that, a production flunky signals that we're clear, and I spend another couple minutes glad-handing with the TV people before I'm free.

My phone lets me know I have a new text message almost instantly.

No casual admission of your crush on Rafa? Tsk.

It's from Benyamin.

No, I think I'll keep my Nike endorsement. I reply.

I'm at the practice courts stretching before taking the courts with Derek before he replies.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how little impact it'll have when we get caught together. See you in London.

I cock an eyebrow at that, and the ramifications are still running through my brain as Derek and I begin our workout. He seems to notice that something's up after I miss three returns in a row spectacularly, and then completely fail to return what was one of his less-spectacular serves.

"OK, I'll bite. What was on the phone?" he asks, coming over and fixing me with an 'Are you serious?' look.

I glance around to make sure nobody is paying particular attention to us before I blurt out what's been running through my mind the last ten minutes.

"I think Benyamin wants to date me!"

-.-

Author's Notes: So, this is my first attempt at actual creative writing in about three years. Working in a news operation, I've had most of both my time and creativity sucked up trying to be clever writing teases and promos. But then last month, I was without the Internet for the better part of a day and started looking through old MSN conversations and found some links to some FP stories I was recommended by an old friend.

When the Net came back, I fell down an FP rabbit hole and spent the better part of a week reading (and re-reading) those stories before I was inspired enough to start one of my own again.

Incidentally, the basic plot for this story was also found in one of those old conversations.

Updates probably won't be quick, just so you're forewarned, due to my work schedule, but I will try to avoid going longer than a month between new chapters.

Thanks for reading,

Phoenix II