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batsplat · 2 months ago

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since you made a few posts about motogp and tennis I have to ask: how would valentino’s and sete’s rivalry look like in your mind than mapped onto 00’s atp tour? and also THE CURSE!!!!! (this is an au where tennis has more whimsy obviously) what would it look like in tennis realities?

got this ask and immediately dropped everything to have a think about it. let's do this

I think valentino's earlier rivalries are trickier to conceptualise in tennis terms than inter-alien rivalries, because the vibes of valentino's early rivalries kinda depend on said rivals not actually beating him to championships, aka the biggest prize in the sport. the biggest prize in tennis is slams and like... it just isn't feasible for anybody to have a chokehold on all the slams for five years. quite frankly I don't even like tennis au's that start throwing around calendar slams unless they're extremely careful about it. in the entire open era, exactly 1 (one) person managed a calendar slam - steffi graf as a teenager over three decades ago. while it is theoretically achievable in the modern game - djokovic got within one match of it until the pressure got to him he ran into an opponent who played at an incredible, divine, beyond phenomenal level to beat him in the us open final - it is very unlikely to happen for various reasons and certainly not by a young male player. this is a long way of saying that valentino is simply not winning twenty consecutive slams from 2001-05. noughties federer gives us a sense of the upper limit of what kind of sustained dominance is possible... generally I think giving valentino a prolonged run at 2-3 slams per year is the way to go here

^noughties federer, which to me represents a pretty hard upper limit for how many slams I'm willing to give someone in such a concentrated time period

the rule in tennis is that if you want to effectively lock out The Field from slams, you need at least 2-3 consistently dominant players. one player cannot effectively lock out the whole field from slams. it's the pack hunter phenomenon - the big three/four's hold on the slams was so enduring and so crushing because whenever one of them was injured or not feeling it or whatever, somebody else was there to pick up the slack. to some extent this is comparable to motogp's alien era, though obviously big three dominance lasted a fair bit longer. neither valentino nor later marc alone could lock out the rest of the field from the occasional race win - but from 2007-15... four non-aliens I believe (vermeulen le mans 2007, capirossi motegi 2007, dovi donington 2009, spies assen 2011, not double checking this because I want to Believe I know this off the top of my head) won races. all the other races were won by one of five guys. obviously in motogp there's also a technology factor, better bikes factory vs independent tyre change + electronics leading to ten race winners in 2016 bla bla bla, but you get the point. all of this means that this version of sete, even if he's the main challenger for valentino in *only two years*... has to win slams. you can come up with a lame workaround for this - for instance, say that all the continental europeans simply suck at grass and you get a 'sampras can't play on clay' nineties type scenario where the fictional bruguera-type equivalent keeps winning wimbledon titles - but idk,, this feels way too convoluted and kind of narratively unsatisfying. so let us just take it as a given that sete is... a late bloomer but one who does end up with an objectively very respectable career. which obviously inevitably changes the vibe of this rivalry at least somewhat

it is at this point that you do come crashing into another major hurdle: the manufacturer switch. this is obviously a really key bit of the vale/sete story and it is basically impossible to translate to tennis. it's not an equipment change, it's not a coaching change (in any case, I'm committed to jb coaching valentino throughout his dominant era), you can't come up with some hackneyed idea of a tennis academy substituting the manufacturer environment or whatever. tbh I do like how... specific this rivalry is to motogp, like it's one that feels very close to the spirit of the sport... in some ways the valentino rivalry that's the trickiest to translate. on the other end of the spectrum is the casey rivalry which reads as a very tennis-coded situation to me, both practically and thematically. the sete rivalry gets a lot of its charm and appeal from stuff that simply would not work as well outside of motogp

(another important element of the rivalry that for obvious reasons can't be translated is everything to do with safety. sete's rise to prominence happened in the direct aftermath of the tragic death of his teammate, both sete and valentino were central among the riders in pushing through safety-related changes after that, safety concerns play an odd uncertain role in shaping the drama that took place at qatar 2004, sete's lasting objections to valentino's actions at jerez 2005 surround what kind of precedent was set in terms of safe riding. the sete/valentino rivalry thematically asks questions of what people owe to each other, the ethical guidelines of competition, the responsibilities of existing within a competitive community. key questions that remain about qatar 2004 is whether sete was involved in any way in reporting valentino due to a *genuine* earnest interest only in ensuring safety and wanting all riders to take that same step, what the competitive calculus was there, whether he was being naive in that situation, and whether valentino was justified in his cynicism about sete's motivations. there is no equivalent in tennis and it's a case where it's best not to try and shoehorn one in)

so failing a practical equivalent, what you really want is to find something thematically similar. this also really isn't easy. the manufacturer switch on a plot level functions as something valentino does to *intentionally* make his own life harder to prove a point and go his own path. it is an act of individual expression along a path of self-actualisation, for both good and ill. for tennis players this is just... I mean it's too egocentric a sport to have to push back against constraints on your individual identity, right. conformity is enforced more through tennis' stringent norms and underlying conservatism, rather than a literal contract that forms the basis of an athlete's participation in the sport. sure, the general vibe of 2003 where valentino was struggling with feeling like he was just expected to win all the time - where any mild dip in form felt disproportionately challenged and winning had become too routine - does also work in tennis but like... what do you do about that? a coaching switch away from a big name coach is probably the closest equivalent, or turning your back on a bollettieri-type structure. but it just doesn't quite work!! the other controversial thing you can do is scheduling, but given he'll be playing all the masters and slams anyway... idk, turning him into a vulture for a year simply does not have the same vibe. unless you handle it very carefully

so. here is what I think you need to do: you need to give him a target. pick one of the four slams and say that he hasn't won it for a few years (or at all), and then have him organise his season around winning that slam. it's got to be either wimbledon or the us open... I've already earmarked roland garros as his slam because I simply think he has the vibes of a clay grinder... and also this gives him so many southern european courts to terrorise his opponents on. which ig in a mugello-equivalent might give him quite a substantial streak at the place. (though might also be worth giving that streak to rome, as a masters and Serious Business that is also valentino's biggest home event.) for obvious reasons, you cannot organise your season around winning a slam that takes place in january, so australia is out. the case for wimbledon is that in some quarters it's still seen as THE prestigious slam. given that it's quite different from clay, it's easy enough to imagine that being his weakest slam (though it really doesn't have to be, cf borg for the most obvious example), it's notoriously tricky to win the channel slam (rg/wim) given how close they are. the argument against it is... idk, how DO you organise your season around winning wimbledon?? take a vacation during rg? yeah, no. it's gonna have to be new york

the us open is the last slam of the year. it doesn't HAVE to be the most open slam - it was for a while on the men's side, but for instance right now the women's slam that's most open is wimbledon and for the nineties men it was rg - but it does lend itself to that status. players are tired + it's a volatile place that lends itself to upsets. tbh you can even say that valentino's never won it. career slams are tough!! you can be a superb dominant player and struggle with the career slam, again cf federer. sampras never did it. my girl henin also couldn't quite manage it. at this point I think we need to add another plot mechanism into the game: year end rankings. this doesn't quite work as a championship equivalent, since you'd basically always choose a slam over year end number one. but it DOES matter to players, especially if it's either your first one or you're approaching a record. sampras made himself sick with worry when he was closing in on his sixth consecutive year (in retrospect extra worth it since it's a rare record that survived the big three era). and if you don't get it one year... you do have to start the streak again. so valentino is chasing doohan's streak and it's a big thing in the media, maybe because doohan's made a dismissive remark about it or whatever, and valentino is being asked a lot about it. valentino wants to be The number one at the end of every year

one more relevant element of the tennis calendar: surfaces are a big big deal in tennis, slightly less so as time goes by and the surfaces have been homogeneised but they still matter for every single player. both in terms of playstyle they suit and how they make you organise your schedule. an odd quirk of the tennis calendar is that right after wimbledon (grass) you get a bunch of small clay tournaments in europe before you head to north america for the hard court swing that leads up to the us open. now, I personally think this is excellent and whimsical and a lot of fun to watch right after wimbledon at a time of year that just FEELS like it should have clay court tennis, but less enlightened souls than myself see this bit of the year as 'pointless' and 'dumb' and 'nonsensical'. the powers that be are currently trying their best to kill that calendar stretch because the sport hates me personally. it's also not got the best reputation,, like some of my fellow fans do kinda look down on top players who go to those tournaments... at times they are decried as vultures... that being said, some players have a compelling reason to go and play there. swiatek obviously wanted to win her home tournament in warsaw and was bitterly disappointed when she didn't manage to do so in an otherwise dominant 2022, though it's now a bit of a moot point since it's switched to hard court anyway. and thiem infamously had a habit of rocking up at kitzbühel to try and win his home tournament, which might not have been the smartest scheduling choice right ahead of canada, cincy and then uso. notably he won his one slam at the 2020 us open, where tennis had been officially paused until august (albeit with many ill-advised exhibition tournaments, which thiem played A LOT of to prepare for his big run) for pandemic reasons. playing those tournaments can come with a tax for the american hard court swing

and now I think we have just about enough plot mechanisms in place to actually figure out how to make this work. so, here we go. valentino and sete have known each other for years. valentino trained with sete as a teenager at at kenny roberts' academy, back when valentino was an upstart brat who thought he can get away with slicing half his groundstrokes. a little bit further down the road, valentino is starting his first proper pro season and gets some friendly advice from sete about tour life which he completely ignores. let's say it's over-scheduling, a classic sin of the young player. valentino has a tough season or two where he's constantly getting injured as he adjusts to tour life.... he was a very promising junior (dealer's choice whether he won junior slams or not, which are more f2 than 250cc in terms of prestige and... probably even less so, they're also NOT predictive whatsoever of future success, especially on the men's side) but he really does need some time to adapt to the men's game. he's one of those young players who is just cramping ALL the time, something charmingly pathetic about some of his early bo5 efforts. valentino wins his first slam in australia and then he's off. hemmed and hawed about how many slams to give him that year and I've ended up settling on ao/wimbledon for a respectable two, his mugello 2001 equivalent disaster takes place on his strongest surface at rg. for now let's say we have a relatively similar timeline to irl so he has another very dominant season and wins... idk, sure, let's give him three slams. I kinda think denying someone uso is a bit tricky because by that point the discourse gets very calendar slam centric and I also think valentino would suit new york well!! but he's just kinda exhausted, one of those years he ends up withdrawing due to injury. both those years he secures year end number one with ease

during this time his main rivals are kr jr, though he tails off sharply, biaggi, capirossi, barros and ukawa. valentino by this point has a firmly established reputation for long, meandering dramatic matches that he manages to just about win. he's not exactly the most efficient in slam draws (or indeed regular draws) - it's very crowd-pleasing tennis, he's the best out there, but it does come with its drawbacks. his serve is underpowered and his forehand is a reliable rally shot more than it is a great finishing shot. he tends to think his way through matches, often starting slowly as he figures the opponent out, has a lot of wins coming from behind. his biggest strengths are the sheer range of weapons in his arsenal - as well as his brain. it's a nightmare to put him away, which is a great way to torture opponents... how to win matches you have no right to win. while he doesn't win every slam in that period, he DOES have an excellent record in slam finals specifically... hey, you know what, let's give him a perfect record - not too unrealistic, if you look at some of the young big stars currently in the men's and women's game. so when he loses it's earlier in the draw, like fourth round territory ig. but that lack in efficiency in making his way through draws is also something that's pointed out to him relating specifically to his struggles at the us open, at which point of the season the gas tank has a bad tendency to be empty. maybe he even gets fitness-related criticisms, like he isn't training the right way, despite his clear ability to win very long matches repeatedly. it's beginning to grate on him. he's ALSO constantly getting shit for playing the clay summer despite how poor scheduling this is. now, irl this swing happens more in northern bits of europe but... I think we can just about justify a minor alteration here. Let Us Say there's a tournament close to valentino's home that he loves dearly and wants to go to every year. so first you have a 250 in bologna and then a 500 in... idk somewhere else in italy, naples let's say

then, he has a season that's just kind of... frustrating. he wins the australian open quite comfortably, idc what he does at the sunshine dubs, wins rome and hamburg... he has an unexpectedly rough time securing his roland garros title, like we're talking three five set matches and just sort of a nightmare of a grind all the way. one of his matches is against sete, who has had a major change-up in coaching and... fuck it, type of racquet used for something a bit more up to date. this doesn't massively make a difference in modern tennis (actually a bad time to write this given it DID make a different for the ao women's champion) but it's the noughties, it's just about justifiable. sete's new coach is actually someone he (amicably) poached from valentino's team, juan martinez, and they've worked a lot on sete's game. they've buffed up the serve and tightened up his game in general. sete has a quite classic, kind of old-fashioned playstyle. he's got a very flat forehand, super pronounced eastern grip, a one-handed backhand, a lovely slice and good hands at the net. he was a bit of a holdout in the shift of the game away from serve and volley (bit later in the timeline than henman) but he switched away from ONLY using that turn of the century-ish. though it's still a proper weapon in the arsenal - and the thing is you need a very good serve for that to be effective, not just hand skills at the net. sete becomes better at powering through his service games while using a lot of chipped returns to elongate receiving games

now this isn't the type of game that necessarily MASSIVELY suits clay, though if you're able to slice and slide there's a path to competitiveness there. he's spanish, he can slide. and big serve plus forehand won't really hurt you on any surface. let's say they meet in... idk, the fourth round or the quarters, sete isn't seeded massively high even though his results this year have picked up. he's never beaten valentino before - and he doesn't here either, but he makes things REALLY hard for valentino. especially in the first couple sets, valentino's really struggling to get a read on the serve, one of those slightly sneaky ones where the ball toss misleads you about where it's going. (generally if you've got a good eye competing against someone with a reliable ball toss, you can read type of serve from ball toss - slightly to the right for a righty means it's a slice serve and slightly to the left further back means topspin. tennis players have sharp eyes: infamously, agassi always knew where becker was going to serve because becker had a tell depending where his tongue poked out of his mouth. agassi had to occasionally pretend to guess wrong to avoid making it too obvious and only told becker about it years after retirement, who had always been confused about how agassi always seemed to guess right.) valentino's a bit off his game, kinda stressed about being expected to deliver the... idk, first title defence at roland garros? let's keep the timeline vague, he's certainly defending the title. and another super frustrating thing sete does is deploy....................... oh god am I really doing this... okay fuck it, if you're still reading this post then that's really on YOU. so. let's go there

and another super frustrating thing sete does is how he deploys a smart return strategy. now, we've established that valentino's weakness tends to be the bread and butter elements of the game, the offensive clinical stuff on serve and forehand. ideally you would want to exploit those things, and if you are a smart player who isn't just awed into submission by valentino's seemingly endless capacity for problem-solving, there are a few things you could try. first off, if you are a one-handed player who has perhaps had to develop a very good slice backhand ANYWAY to compensate for any weaknesses (particularly defensive) on that wing - and also have that extra bit of power in your dominant arm from not using your non-dominant arm for the backhand - you may also have a very good chipped return. (even for good 1hbh's, returns can be an issue.) (oh also chipped returns - also called blocks - are basically like... you mostly just use the momentum of the opponent's shot to literally block the ball, but the general trajectory of the racquet is from high to low, so like with the slice. puts a different spin on the ball, keeps it low.) so if you were to do a lot of that and keep feeding it into valentino's forehand (given that he's a lefty, this is actually quite nice to do with a backhand return - particularly since his favourite serve is an ad kicker out wide which generally would have a high success rate against 1hbh's) then you are giving him a low ball without a lot of speed. not necessarily the kind of shot your typical counterpuncher wants to be redirecting, which means you keep having rallies on valentino's serve that continually get reset to neutral. valentino unwilling to generate power himself and continually ending up in a normal rally. another supplementary tactic is to actually like... massively step back on the second serve, way more common these days but back then a bit more of a radical approach, and give yourself time on the ball - makes it more likely you can move around your backhand and hit the ball with a forehand instead. and if it's not the best second serve in the world, you sure can take a whack at it

now eventually, valentino does figure this one out. loses the first after a fast start from sete, grabs the second on a tiebreak that FEELS like it should be the turning point, loses the third anyway quite comfortably. at this point valentino goes full lockdown mode and just makes it a complete grind, just utterly disgusting tennis. he will hit high topspin forehands into sete's backhand a million times if he has to. it's not even necessarily winning through brains as much as it is sheer perseverance, until eventually sete's legs fail him and the tennis wavers just enough for valentino to eek out a win. they're very warm at the net, it's one of those 'valiant underdog' efforts at slams where everyone thinks the winner was certain all the time anyway but applauds the underdog (though valentino secretly wasn't so confident throughout the match). valentino and sete are friends by this point, close by the standard of tennis players - they like to train together in italy and have of course spent a few summers together in ibiza... ah I realise I have sacrificed valentino's ability to have meaningful summer holidays to the clay gods. idk they spend the off-season together, whatever. valentino is very complimentary of sete's progress, it's all warm and lovely. he already had one of those kinda silly 'you really shouldn't be in a match this long' situations in the second round.... but after this sete match it feels like he should probably have found his feet, clear through the rest of the draw quite easily. in the end, it's actually more exhausting than that - valentino drops a set to *spins wheel* checa in the semis in pretty unnecessary fashion, and then he ends up in a gruelling five set final against capirossi. a match valentino was in firm control of and then repeatedly in less firm control of. it's just kind of loose and dumb and a bit stupid, fine because he eventually won but probably didn't need to be that close

scholars will note that I've actually given valentino a nicer start to the sete rivalry than he got in real life, seeing as he did actually secure a victory in their first Super Meaningful Duel. as recompense, I'm about to make the rest of his season substantially worse than his actual 2003. I think you can make a version that's more 2003-y by having sete beat valentino in australia and go from there, but I've committed to having valentino lose us open a few times to inject extra stakes into that tournament so... we are giving the early rivalry quite a different vibe here. whatever. now, crucially, valentino doesn't play any warm up events before wimbledon to recover from rg, which didn't cost him last year but DOES this time and he crashes out in the first week. it's his first loss before the third round since he was like twenty one and it's against an opponent he shouldn't be losing to, some scrub idc. sete, remarkably, goes on to win the title, which even after his positive roland garros run comes as a bit of a shock to everyone. it's a big deal, valentino when later asked about it is of course super complimentary, as we've established it's all lovely. valentino goes off to play his home 250 and gets another round of judgement from the journalists, who are already unimpressed by his early wimbledon exit. he rocks up to canada and makes the final... only to lose to sete. valentino struggles extra hard with sete's game on the quick surface and sete steals the match from him in a deciding set tiebreak. this is NOT the sort of match valentino normally loses, ESPECIALLY in a final, he just has this cockroach-like tendency of surviving even the trickiest situations... and sete managed to stand up to him when it mattered most. valentino is once again extremely complimentary of sete, it was a great fight, he had a lot of fun (and he's being earnest, he DOES love the challenge and the battle, these are the matches that make him feel alive)

then he has a bit of a weird cincy where weather-related scheduling issues means he has to play his quarterfinal and semi on the same day, and he ends up losing to biaggi who wins the tournament. by valentino's standards, this is actually a bit of a big title drought - three whole big tournaments without winning one. (obviously this is silly, but so was the three race thing.) journalists think he really needs to stamp his authority again on the tour at the us open, locker room aura etc etc where he doesn't look too beatable. he actually has a reasonably decent campaign and is looking like the clear favourite for the title, until he runs into sete who is somehow in the second week of a slam AGAIN. now, valentino has to lose this match in a slightly stupid fashion. admittedly when I picture losing matches in stupid fashion, my mind typically goes for the REALLY stupid examples like medvedev/tsitsipas rg '21 or foki/rune wim '23... iykyk. but I don't think valentino goes temporarily insane and does an underarm serve and volley. I think he just... fourth set tiebreak coming back from a two set to love deficit, it feels like he's the firm favourite again, if he wins this tiebreak he surely surely goes on to win the match. five all and he plays a really good point to put him in an attacking position, and he tries to be TOO smart and plays the mid court ball in sete's direction, hoping sete would have already started running to the other side of the court - instead, sete has called his bluff, stuck in place and passes him. sets up matchpoint and sete hits an ace. painful, humiliating, dumb way to lose the semi of a slam. never in his career does valentino do such a bad job of hiding how much it stings as here. all the way to the net and in press.... it radiates off him. he's not rude to sete but he does clearly want to die. sete wins the title, which somehow means he's come essentially out of nowhere to win two consecutive slams, and a masters title to boot

the press... oh the press lay into valentino. it's a stupid way to lose a slam and it's the latest defeat in a slam he's never won. is valentino really as smart as he thinks he is question mark. and he really shouldn't be losing to SETE, who never should have been the challenger to the throne but now suddenly looks like he might be the best player in the world. AND serious questions are being asked of valentino's scheduling choices. it's humiliating, it's frustrating, it's a Bit Too Much and sete quite publicly defends valentino but it still stings. valentino takes as much of a break as the scheduling allows post-uso (what's the weather like in ibiza during this time of year huh) and spends it with sete ofc. he dyes his hair and gets grumpy about how everyone wants him to win all the time and doesn't really even seem to care when he does. they criticise how he plays - too undisciplined, too much faff, too many dropshots - and it feels stifling. the year end number one isn't in serious danger this year because of all the non slam points valentino amassed, but it's still not a great feeling. now, in that era the next masters was actually madrid, which might not be a slam but given that it's sete's home tournament does provide an opportunity to give a sort of brno-type bit of payback. they meet in the final again, big hype by this point, and valentino snatches an extremely dramatic victory from the jaws of defeat. lots of long rallies in that deciding set - valentino increasingly managing to exploit how his excellent backhand can stand up to sete's forehand and he can eventually pull the trigger and redirect down the line. valentino still getting criticised for the excessive flourishes to his game, but nobody can argue with how good of a victory it is. they hug very warmly at the net, their speeches to each other are very lovely, crowd supported both of them since spanish vs endless valentino popularity... all lovely vibes. valentino signs off the season flawlessly by winning the paris masters and the atp finals (yeah look he can play on indoor hard too, he's flexible enough to be a bit more aggressive + volley-focused)

now. valentino goes into the off-season with a Plan. he radically rejigs his serving technique with his coach jb, a bunch of technical changes that are tough to spot like... idk man, more vertically explosive, changes the angle at which he draws his racquet back... but also an extremely obvious switch from pinpoint to platform. (goes from drawing his legs together mid-motion to keeping them apart.) fucking about with your technique is normal - this, however, is substantial fucking about to be doing when you are winning 2-3 slams every year. it is the kind of thing that can massively backfire if you've fucked the technique, serves are sensitive, and valentino is clear that he will need some adjustment period. he also does two things that are pretty controversial: make clear he's intending to complete the career slam that year by winning us open AND sign up for his stupid summer clay tournament. he actually DOUBLES DOWN on this choice, going for both bologna and naples rather than just bologna, which is even dumber and more insane scheduling. as a sort of fuck you to everyone who's been telling him he's an idiot

valentino then promptly wins the australian open. he's in a different league from everyone else until the final, including... actually nvm, biaggi takes sete out in the semis since I kinda feel like sete surely has to be seeded number two by now. the final is great, a lot of drama, very tight five setter. valentino doesn't exactly win on the strength of his serve and he's actually kinda struggling with his... *throws dart blindfolded* let's say his lower back by the end of it, to the point where (to nick a plot point from 1989 roland garros R4 chang vs lendl) he ends up serving underarm to catch biaggi off guard at a crucial point. it is an ORDEAL, valentino clearly not at his best. this whole serve thing looks like it might not have been his smartest play. but in all other areas of his game, valentino has kind of doubled down on his specific style - with all the trick shots and junk and awful spins. he wins, it's probably his best major final to date. big relief

that being said, that lower back isn't doing great. valentino has to sit out february, then the sunshine dubs in march, then also monte carlo for good measure. this is to give him a nice healthy deficit in the atp race, aka the question of whether he's going to secure his... nth consecutive year end number one, let's not think too hard about timelines stuff. crucially he wants that streak to go on - it's not as important as the career slam, but it very much matters and now it does look in serious jeopardy. idk, does sete secure the sunshine dubs? kinda asking a lot, but he's racked up a lot of points for sure - so despite winning the australian open, valentino has a lot of work to do. he's not really in a massive amount of danger of LOSING the number one spot early in the year since his post-uso run banked him a LOT of points that only drop off the rankings late in the year. but still. he's a very clear second in the race. first tournament back is rome and he's playing the final in front of his home crowd against sete - it's a very close match, tough to manage for valentino, especially physically after a decent stretch off. the rain bails valentino out by giving him a break in play and when they come back... sete's very good in tricky conditions but valentino's ball is working really well in the heavy clay and valentino scrapes out a win. sete makes a comment later that can be interpreted as ever so slightly shady about how the italian fans must have done a rain dance. also there was like... a small controversy around earlier in the match where the umpire checked the wrong mark of valentino's and called one of his balls out when it was actually in. valentino annoyed because he feels like he's been disproportionately affected by bad umpiring in the past year

valentino also wins hamburg and he AGAIN plays sete at some point in the proceedings. good close match and they're both very complimentary about each other afterwards. and then he wins roland garros and once again has played sete. this match... hm idk what kind of controversy do we want here, let's make it a slightly dodgy medical timeout from valentino at the sharp end of proceedings. that back won't fix itself!! on-court massage etc etc. valentino scrapes past sete once again to win the title. extremely successful injury comeback and the choice to switch the serving technique mostly vindicated, even though valentino otherwise has very much emphasised his individuality. he's playing with more freedom again, he's doing all his silly lil shots, he's not embarrassed at his four hour matches and instead embraces the grind. the battle. sete visibly pissed after this match though they talk it out and it's all good <3 should also be noted that sete is racking up quite a lot of points despite losing eventually to valentino and is still fairly firmly in the lead of the race. lot of talk of valentino losing year end number one, especially if he overextends himself

and at wimbledon, valentino loses a slam final for the first time ever. in a way, it's a Good Effort to get that far - again, no lead-in events. he's picked up an abdominal strain at some point that's also vaguely serve-related. (kinda thinking of a djokovic 2021 ao type situation.) now for obvious reasons, this final has to be lost in a slightly controversial way. my longstanding thesis on the valentino tennis front is that he's one of those people who thinks all kind of mind games and trickery is perfectly a-okay but then suddenly has weird hang ups if someone disregards something tennis etiquette related. I do have a very specific tennis player in mind, and if you're a reasonably long time fan of the sport and its drama you'll probably know what I'm talking about here, but I do love when somebody is, uh,, very..... liberal. in a lot of their approach to etiquette but does seem to take apologising for let cords extremely seriously. now this one is kinda tricky because !! I do feel like sete specifically also generally would be pretty pro etiquette so obviously there has to be an element of ambiguity here. I'm not entirely happy with this as a qatar equivalent, it's not an easy one to figure out, but here's what I've got: quite deep into the match, very tense in a tiebreak, there's a point where valentino is at the net, a lot of faffing about as they chase each other around, and then sete hits valentino in the abdomen. in tennis this is Fine, it literally is not that serious, sometimes you hit an opponent accidentally and sometimes you do it on purpose because it's a good tactic and the most high percentage play. it's even more okay if somebody at the back does it to a volleyer I feel, like it's not a smash from the volleyer at someone standing in the court... maybe valentino was off balance and just a bit slow to react to get the racquet up. obviously it's extra painful and has a more severe effect given what injury he's already carrying (always thought somebody should have given that a shot with djokovic) but it's Fine. except then it looks like sete turns around to receive his towel without apologising, maybe he half indicates with the racquet but not clearly. and valentino is Furious. maybe sete even gives the proper apology hand gesture by the time he's got the towel but by that point it's too late - it set up sete's set point, so that's why sete was a bit distracted and trying to focus on himself.... but valentino doesn't care. mind games, deeply cynical use of the crowd etc etc are one thing, but not properly apologising?? height of unsportsmanlike conduct. valentino also later objects to how enthusiastically sete's coach celebrated the point win

(the reasoning here generally is that motogp is more concerned with ethical violations and tennis more with moral ones. motogp is more about community and doing right by another rider, tennis cares about standards and etiquette and doing right by some sort of abstract code of conduct. ultimately what is being communicated here is an emotional truth - valentino's feeling that sete lacks respect for him, and also will do whatever it takes to win despite pretending to be relatively unaffected by individual matches or the atp race or whatever. I tried thinking of something sete might snitch to the umpire about for a closer equivalent but like... I can't come up with anything that preserves the genuine sense of ambiguity. the other one I was toying with is a double bounce controversy, which... works better for another rivalry because it doesn't feel quite right for *sete* to be the clear offender... like you could maybe have the umpire mistakenly call a double bounce for valentino but idk, you wouldn't really expect another player to intervene there... this version feels more visceral emotionally somehow, in line with the qatar crash)

sete goes on to win the set and also the match against a somewhat physically impaired and also FURIOUS valentino. (incidentally, this physical impairment is later used to undermine sete's accomplishment at this tournament, as I'm sure is true of all three of sete's slams.) cue an extremely horrid vibes trophy ceremony. after mostly blanking sete in-person, valentino airs his grievances in the press conference, where he lays into sete's conduct. it is also rumoured that at some point that evening valentino says that....... um........... sete will never win another tournament again in which valentino is in the draw. okay, look, doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but I think it works well enough. that's all the major tournaments anyway, but saying "sete won't win another slam" isn't curse-y enough and "sete won't win another big tournament* again // *by big tournament we include slams, 1000s and also the year end finals plus olympics, though 250 and 500 tournaments are excluded from consideration" also isn't exactly overflowing with poetry. but if you left out that 'valentino in the draw' proviso... idk irl the curse wasn't a curse in the moment as much as it was a competitive vow. in this universe, valentino could not stop sete from vulturing marseille - so he needs to have a vow he theoretically has the direct power to enforce. anyway. the friendship is OVER. not only does valentino feel slighted, but also this whole ordeal has put sete in a promising position to steal year end number one off valentino, especially if valentino once again fails to secure us open. he could lose his crown. AND according to valentino, sete behaved completely unacceptably [insert heavy implications that he aimed deliberately at valentino to injure him and get the title that way that valentino won't outright SAY but clearly go alongside the dumber etiquette breach stuff]. idk we're aiming for a mix of 'yeah I get why you'd be mad about that' and 'is it really that serious',, quite tricky but that's what I've got

at this point, any sensible person would take as much time as possible to lick their wounds, especially given they promised a career slam. but valentino Shall Not - he made a commitment to his home fans and he's going to honour that. so off he goes to play his stupid dumbass tournaments in bologna and naples. obviously he wins them because the draw really is not all that good, but it's still very... god what is he doing, has he given his abdomen enough time to rest... he then decides to skip canada because we have to draw the line somewhere, luckily for him sete doesn't win that (maybe he withdrew too and valentino only withdrew once he'd heard lol). and then valentino goes to cincy and wins THAT. doesn't play sete who lost fairly early, which has at least somewhat tightened up the race to ye#1. and THEN you get the us open, aka valentino's chance to secure a Major Career Milestone in a year where it looked really unlikely at points he'd come even close to that kind of thing. faces sete in the final obviously. (low key this is super strong season sete's putting together here but the streets won't acknowledge it and will call him a weak era merchant.) valentino drops his obligatory first set and then they're off.... after that epic uso semi of the previous year, valentino has never lost another tight match to sete again. his serve really is better now and trickier to bully. BUT but but crucially... you gotta have that vibe where it's very much a slam run that feels valentino-y... tightening up his offensive game is an alien era character arc - this is counterpunching at its most glorious. and it's really designed to torture sete. every time they're in a neutral rally, it feels like no shot from sete is good enough to escape from valentino's grasp. pure ruthless intent in the amount of high spin valentino plays into sete's backhand. sete never safe from valentino's blistering backhand down the line. dropshots targeted to humiliate - valentino coming up to the ball with a big big takeback, instinctively making sete step back, only for him to slip the racquet into an extremely well disguised dropper. it's a very high quality battle - sete takes the third on a loose valentino service game, before valentino wins a comfortable fourth set. which means sete is serving first in the fifth set - and at *4-5, valentino faces two match points, which he adeptly saves. one with an extremely brave serve and volley. they end up in a deciding set tiebreak (already a thing at the uso back then) and valentino wins to secure his career slam. sete congratulates him but the vibes are frigid

from there on, valentino sees out the race to get year number one with relative ease. now if you've been paying close attention, you've probably noticed that I mentioned madrid taking place after the us open the previous season, which makes for a very obvious jerez 2005 opportunity. and... there's a strong case to be made for making madrid the jerez, I hear it, but... look, to me there's a funnier jerez expy. so let's just take it as read that sete is winning none of these tournaments. sete's fortunes from there are going downhill, he's getting unlucky with various minor injuries that are taking him out of tournaments. and also obviously valentino is beating him every time they face each other - for a while it's always in finals until eventually sete's ranking is allowed to drop a bit. I suppose you could make quite an obvious parallel in terms of valentino only winning the year end finals TWICE in his career,, like with valencia irl. I don't have massively strong feelings about his indoor hard prowess so sure, let's say he struggles with the ultra fast hard they tend to have at the finals. anyway, he secures year end number one, revels in the schadenfreude, also beats sete in the round robin at the finals... it's all extremely satisfying

before we get to the jerez equivalent. I do think it's worth briefly addressing the Vibe of this relationship... it's tough because tennis functions more on the micro level, like you kinda have championship narratives playing out within single *matches*. it's way more about these little moments within sets, games, points, than the macro level I've been focusing on here. I think crucially you have to emphasise that valentino feels like he's under a lot of pressure to perform and that there's never enough winning and that he has to conform to certain expectations wrt scheduling... no fucking about with your canada obligations to play clay 250s at home... and the key thing is that sete really really isn't supposed to be The Challenger. so at a certain point in the 2003-equivalent, it really does feel like people won't be happy unless valentino wins everything. this relationship is a death by a thousand cuts type situation... a lot of very minor infringements, things in matches valentino doesn't like, tonal differences he thinks he detects during practise session. there's a reason why serious rivals in tennis basically always keep their distance from each other - it's an intensely emotional and personal sport and you can't really afford extra complications when you can look the other person in the eyes between every point. tennis matches are long and they are fantastically cruel. you are denying somebody else their dream very, very slowly, with lots of pauses to consider what you're doing

in tennis... tbh, I think there'd be a lot of Discourse about even HAVING a friendship in the first place, like Is It Really Smart For Valentino Rossi To Be This Close To His Rival. slight irony to this of course because in motogp, it's seen as some sort of crime against nature when he DOES get a little bit of distance from his title rivals, but tennis is different!! a sort of williams sisters situation is extremely rare - when tennis rivals at the very highest level get close, they really only do so post-retirement. that kind of rivalry takes its toll. if valentino continues to train with sete during much of this time span... eventually, you're putting a serious amount of strain on that relationship where you're practically begging it to snap. and this young version of valentino isn't exactly experienced at managing these emotions yet either, so he has this increased competitive paranoia and bitterness and frustration and feeling that sete is lying about taking their friendship seriously and doing the Respectful Rivalry schtick and then just... snaps. that wimbledon final kinda makes him unravel and sete only realises until it's too late. it's the us open trophy ceremony where I think you want to lay on the cruelty - this is where, as valentino, if you toe the line very carefully and don't make it TOO obvious, I reckon you could get that new york crowd to laugh at the loser by using your speech. microphone in hand, you can do all your mockery with the pretence of gentle ribbing (and it's very valentino in that he doesn't have to look sete in the eye while doing it) but the humiliation is very real. you can make a spectacle of the cruelty and the uso crowd will help you out. and that specific crowd would adore valentino I reckon

now we're gonna skim over the next season. if I were doing a full valentino in tennis treatment, I'd probably elongate 2001 over two seasons, make valentino a bit older in the 2004 equivalent and then collapse 2005 and 2006 into a single season, partly because I'm getting a bit leery of how many slams I'm having valentino rack up. the 2006 equivalent would be losing the calendar slam at the final hurdle idk. I'm not super wedded to that, I'd have to then actually do the maths and figure out where my suspension of disbelief kicks in with slam numbers/sustained periods of domination. but for now, let's just say that this new season is going great for valentino and not great at all for sete, curse taking more and more effect bla bla bla. now idk maybe making previous year madrid into jerez DOES work better because you have the immediacy of this next defeat as the Final Nail In Sete's Coffin, as something that fucked with sete's confidence and ensured his 2005 was disastrous, but... I would like to make the case for wimbledon. by this point, sete is two time defending champion there. of all the motogp riders, I do feel like sete has the most of a wimbledon vibe, they'd like how well-spoken and classy he is. and... I know the brits were canonically terrors on valentino's behalf slightly later in the timeline, but tennis is a bit of a different crowd and idk,, let's just say they really take to sete. I just think this is a fun one for a jerez equivalent because a) it's a slam final which means both very high stakes and longer match format to work with, and b) it's harder to make the tennis brits jeer but it CAN be done. and as the number one fan of valentino rossi being booed, I just really love the image of the wimbledon crowd booing valentino. I think for this one for maximum devastation you can throw in a two sets to love lead, which in spite of what this current decade might have you believe used to be a very rare lead to overturn in slam finals. making grass sete's strongest surface also means you get a bit of... y'know, this is the last fortress, this is where sete can still properly challenge valentino. and he's really got the crowd going for him, cheering for the underdog etc etc, it's all very smart play and he's clearly gone away and studied everything valentino has done to beat him and has come up with tactics to change that around. this is a guy who puts a lot of thought into his game who has figured out how to challenge valentino in ways in which valentino hadn't been challenged before, and he's still doing that - it's working. wins at least one set super clearly, a 6-1 type gig

and then valentino's brain kicks into motion and he adjusts. he's not beaten sete on grass before and it's clear he's struggling with it, sete way better at compensating for any shortfalls in his game here. grinding is always going to struggle on grass, and unlike some of valentino's opponents sete doesn't faint at the sight of a slice. so what valentino ends up doing is... very risky tennis that prioritises getting further into the court and to the net whenever possible. on the rise shots, chip and charge, ghost in after shots whenever possible. serve and volley! obviously. it's extremely tough to deal with a player suddenly playing a completely different style, to feed you a different kind of ball whenever possible. valentino basically just decides that he's not going to allow the game to be decided at the baseline At All and if he can't go forward, he'll use the dropshot to drag sete forwards. gets a lot of use out of his lob, which he loves. really trying to wrong foot sete whenever possible. sete tries to return valentino's dropshots with his own dropshots and it plays into valentino's hands. those two sets go by fairly quickly too, it's a grass match, these things can go fast... you end up embroiled in a deciding set. now, I think we're going to use a really strong 1-2 punch to properly piss off the brits, who are fully rooting for sete here - and both of these are callbacks to sources of controversy that have previously been mentioned here. first off, I think we should reverse what happened the previous year at wimby as a symbolic bookend, and have valentino fire a ball at sete. now I know I said incidents of shooting a ball at someone are completely okay, but there's... ones that are more okay and ones that are less okay. if you have a lot of time on a smash, one you can aim literally anywhere else rather than an opponent who's clearly already given up on the point - and you still hit your opponent? I mean it's... it's absolutely still a legit tactic but not necessarily ones crowds LOVE. you can't do too many of those before you get a reputation, but if valentino's mostly squeaky clean on that front I reckon he gets away with One. now, obviously, he immediately and with full power of theatre and spite on his side very clearly apologises to sete with his hands. the kind of apology that is very much a fuck you. the brits are unimpressed. then the OTHER thing you bring back is another thing most people these days don't mind but the wrong kind of crowd HATES - the underarm serve. on championship point. he doesn't have an injury justification this time - it's supposed to read as disrespectful. valentino does a really strong job with it, very unexpected, getting a lot of side spin on the ball and drawing sete to the net to lob him one last time. they boo him all the way to the net, where sete has Words with valentino but still shakes his hand

at this point, turning to the crowd, valentino can obviously go for the whole routine. I love love love his canonical jerez 2005 performance because he's got so many of my favourite 'you're being booed' hits in there and it's like,, very spontaneous, it's like watching someone come up with the mona lisa from scratch. you've got the excessive fist pumping at the crowd, you've got the finger to the sky, the hands on hips, the waving, the CLAPPING at the crowd AND the thumbs up... honestly if he'd put his finger to his lips, cupped his ears and beckoned at the crowd to keep going, he would've gotten the full set. I think he already does a lot of that DURING the fifth set because the beauty of tennis is you get a lot of that crowd interaction in-built and valentino would be MADE for that, but I ALSO think he goes full ham after the match. throughout the trophy ceremony, where sete is like. kinda disapproving but is verbally very clean and respectful and just acknowledges the crowd for all their support. and valentino is grinning shamelessly. practically drowning in malice

and yeah after that sete's career basically collapses. though I want to get One more hit in there - a sort of once more with feeling sachsenring 2005 situation, maybe at cincy idk. where you get a reversal of the point with which valentino set up match point at the us open two years previously - valentino attacking sete right where sete is standing and valentino easily passes him. now sete, frazzled, low on confidence, seemingly destined to always fall apart in front of valentino even when he gets close to victory, plays right at valentino, who passes him for the match win. just real studies in despair type shit. incidentally sachsenring 2005 was the last time they ever shared a podium, so in this world it's the last final they ever play. one more brutal defeat, one more disgustingly bad vibes trophy ceremony shared. the rumoured 'curse' is by this point well established urban legend. sete doesn't even manage to win ANY other tournament at any level as his results are just increasingly fucked. this feels super tennis-y tbh. like valentino in general has some very tennis-coded attributes, and an approach to competition that heavily features tormenting rivals until their confidence collapses is absolutely one of them. tennis in general is more like... accepting conceptually that the brain does indeed Matter, maybe because it's just impossible to deny there, whereas with motogp mind games get discussed in a very weird manner as if like. every act in competition isn't a mind game. come on you people. so 'suddenly becoming unable to close tight matches because your confidence is gone' feels very tennis-y. sometimes you fix it sometimes you don't. sete doesn't

in conclusion. um. I do think you have to be prepared to take some liberties with both characters, I'm not saying I think this is a perfect equivalent, I know there's a lot to be critiqued about my qatar 2004 in particular. also, obviously injuries have to some extent be used as a stand-in for like. bike related issues. I know valentino canonically is very blessed on the injury front, but tennis functions kinda differently where... idk they might not be competing with these big dramatic injuries, but they will inevitably have recurring issues they have to work around. AND schedule around. few tennis matches will result in you breaking both ankles, but breaking both ankles precludes you from playing a tennis match. and that's just a fact of competitive life in tennis that you can take advantage of with valentino, in a way that also precludes any serious injuries from taking him out of THE biggest tournaments for any sustained period of time (during his most competitive era anyway)

so. I think what you want to emphasise here is a genuine friendship that gets increasingly warped by the introduction of competitive stakes, and how at a certain point every minor offence can take on an exaggerated meaning in a very tense environment. sete isn't really prepared to deal with this adjustment and isn't prepared to deal with the version of valentino that comes with it. and valentino isn't really prepared either... he's trying to find a way to manage expectations by going his own way and Not conforming, whether he's doing that with his playstyle or with his haircuts or with his scheduling, prioritising matters of the heart + passion over competitive convenience. and then he's facing a challenger who can beat him in a way that HURTS, a guy who wasn't supposed to be his primary challenger and is his FRIEND but is now beating him at the tournaments valentino really cares about and in ways that valentino is generally beating everyone else. somebody who shows that valentino isn't the only clever top player, somebody who actually has a decent stab at outsmarting valentino. it's bruising for the ego and it's tough to stomach from a friend - who is simultaneously super committed to the clean image of the rivalry as something that's very respectful (unlike vale/biaggi), where they can actually talk about their issues rather than have a fistfight

once you get the breaking point, it's basically just an excuse for valentino to separate himself from sete, to finally get the distance he needed. eventually, valentino gets to dig into the full reservoir of mind games with sete. he does this on a competitive level by relishing those exact right situations where sete was getting the better of him, making crucial adjustments to his game and tactics so that suddenly all those tight matches always go in his favour; he figures out where sete is weak and keeps hammering him there. he does this by publicly making fun of sete, knowing that sete is so committed to his civility that he will not respond in kind. he does this by mirroring sete's past offences back at him, and by doing it with a particular malicious relish. this arch dismissiveness to ridicule the idea that sete could ever have hoped to be a sustained rival. it's all about the cruelty of putting sete back in his place. and eventually it gets to a point where it really DOES feel like a curse, where sete can't trust the game valentino has poked so many holes in to work against EVERYONE. injuries eventually make his career tail off. somehow, it feels like valentino is responsible even for that

#tennis!valentino would be an ASSHOLE god bless. tennis can only make a person worse #fittingly saw this ask first thing coming back from playing myself #did have a moment typing 'young male player' where i was like... hm. but either drug ban or natural surfaces will come through for me #and if it happened it wouldnt matter if you laugh at me for being wrong because i'll have thrown myself off the nearest bridge #//#brr brr #batsplat responds #//curst #tennisgp tag

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