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one (1) drunk introvert & his emotional support introvert

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Jannik Sinner is shown his name on the board of Wimbledon Champions, after defeating Carlos Alcaraz in the final on July 13, 2025, with the score of 4-6 6-4 6-4 6-4. His hand touches the names, stopping for a moment on Novak Djokovic, his inspiration, mentor and, at times, distant idol.

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SINCARAZ x Running Up That Hill: I'd make a deal with God

And I'd get Him to swap our places

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SINCARAZ x Her (The American Dawn)

Requested by @hydroblader!

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SINCARAZ: their rivalry is something out of the ordinary

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Tennis RPF Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Darren Cahill Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Magic, Wimbledon 2025, Magical Realism, Occult, Rituals, Southern Gothic, Gothic Horror, Sacrifice, Nature Will Have Its Due, Old Gods of Wimbledon Summary:

The roof closes. So does the circle.

Darren Cahill works in shadows - in chalk and string tension, in whispered spells and bloodless offerings. 

Rituals. Sigils. Subtle magics scratched into hardcourt and whispered into clay. 

But grass is different. Older. Easily offended. It doesn’t like to be used.

And Wimbledon remembers him

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FORZA! 🎾🦊🧡😁

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you're my number one boy.

jannik sinner and novak djokovic — succession 1.10: nobody is ever missing.

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yep it feels so right! novak's more similar to carlos in terms of on-court demeanor and off court public behaviors (they're both extroverts who like drawing attention) and he's more similar to jannik in terms of the actual tennis and mental attitude during points (they both play a similar style, both had a similar body structure growing up, and both go into "hunt mode" during matches)

Novak talking tennis w Jannik and life w Carlitos is honestly the most oh yeah obviously news ever

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Doubles Troubles Collection • Sara Errani & Andrea Vavassori • Wimbledon 2025

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"i don't have to give explanations always" 😭😭😭

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ehehehhdhdhdhehehehhe

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great post and ugh yeah those comparisons are evil af, but i wouldn't say jannik "proved that those things are exactly what made novak unlovable." novak was unloved firstly because he crashed the beloved fedal rivalry and then because he didn't accept the crowd's bitchy preference and instead reacted to it with anger. both things which jannik didn't do (novak is an extrovert like carlos in public, not an introvert like jannik and rafa.) the playstyle is part of it but it's definitely not the most important part - rafa himself could have easily been described as a boring grinder in an evil alternative universe.

but yeah jannik is THE forsaken child: natural father doesn't want him (too scared of the many threatening similarities on court and not similar enough off court to try to get close), idol doesn't care for him (not stylish and "genius"/interesting enough for him) and the one big 3 who showed some sympathy for him can't adopt him for legal reasons (being spanish)

the equal and opposite sincaraz djokoson psychological situations are so evil (positive). son of your two greatest rivals as the cuckoo in your nest vs your own son who inherited the things that made you great and proved that those things are exactly what made you unlovable. and they both live in your house

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The "a thread of order" blog recently referenced something Carlos said after the 2024 RG final: “In the fifth set of the final is the time to give it all, fight until you can’t fight anymore. That’s what makes you a warrior, and I consider myself a warrior.” That quote, together with his constant references to the movie "300", his on-court histrionics and the supernatural big-final-moment level of tennis he can produce, made me spiral into an idiotic sincaraz fan-theory (OBVIOUSLY inaccurate and fictional.) So here it is:

I personally suspect that Carlos perceives matches (especially important ones) as if they were movies/plays and he's the one playing the hero & warrior archetype. It's partly why he needs the crowds: they're all part of the scene, and also big reactions feel more epic. And it's also why he can sometimes reach an unbelievable level at the acme of big matches, something that would require inhuman amounts of confidence and self-belief: that's because in that moment he's not just Carlos the excellent tennis player-normal guy, he's not just himself (that would cause some amount of insecurity) but he's actually embodying The Heroic Warrior archetype! And he knows that there's a divine narrative script in place for heroes in stories (matches) which will make him prevail at the end. It's basically a narrative archetype/role he tries to live up to and embody in matches, because he needs to see the matches and himself as "something more" in order to then get more from himself on court. And when the opponent is weak or the match isn't exciting the illusion of being the Hero-Warrior is obviously harder to maintain obviously.

On the other side we have Jannik, who tries to block out the crowd and be composed, and only communicates with his team and his opponent. Where Carlos tries to see the whole stadium as part one big scene that's enacting something more than a tennis match, Jannik tries to shrink his world to the strict permiter of the singles court plus his own box. For him it's a competitive pro game, it's his career and his public role, it's exciting and fun and terrible but it's not a big metaphor or an archetypal flight of fancy. He's competing against his opponent and trying to play the best tennis possible. He's "just" himself on court, the player-version of himself.

[I wonder if this maybe would have something to do with Jannik not focusing on tennis until he was 13 (and having a more gradual and setback-prone rise) while Carlos has been immersed in tennis from birth basically (and has obviously had a more sudden and easier rise in the scene.) I don't think that can be the reason though, it's too superficial.]

op this essay is awesome. i was just answering an unrelated ask and coming to the same conclusion that carlos thrives on the narrative import of big moments. he is Aware of them in a way that not every athlete can let themselves be aware, he is Aware of what it means to rise to the occasion. classic advice is "pretend it's just another match" but carlos demonstrably performs better in Big Moments than in just another match.

also think this contributed to the post-olympics crashout. not just defeat, not just a match he could have won, but failure at the ultimate climax of the ultimate stage of the biggest theater in sport, the global superevent literally created to propagate the idea that Sports Is More Than Sports. all that, and here's where he finds out that sometimes sheer protagonism just isn't enough. narrative of choice trumped by other, bigger narrative. i'm sure that was wildly destabilizing to experience for the first time, lol, good (????) thing he's got the protagonism back on track now.

this all just boils down, again, to the question of ego and self-made mythos and can you achieve greatness without storytelling. (© user radelulu.) it is sooooooooo fun to see absolute black-and-white photonegative-inverses in a direct clash for our entertainment. tho bc the clash is taking place in the theater of sports the table is rigged and the house, aka storytelling, always wins—the only way to beat it is to remove yourself from the table.

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Novak on likability - a web weave

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i'm shamelessly taking advantage of this open tag lol

my picrew and last song

tagging anyone who actually sees this and wants to have a go!

thank you for the tag @mattiabellucci !! my picrew and last song

um.. I think everyone's done it at this point... tagging you if you want to play!