Page 6 of Breakpoint
T he Florida sun beat down mercilessly on Jaz’s practice courts, even though it was still March, the hard surface radiating heat that shimmered in gauzy waves.
Sweat trickled down her back, plastering her shirt to her skin as she practiced her serve.
She didn’t win Indian Wells and was still pissed about it.
She made it into the semi-finals and lost to the number five player in the world, but showing up and not winning was a failure in her book.
And to top it all off, her normal training schedule for the day and the order she liked were being thrown off. She needed order in her everyday life to help with the chaos of being on tour. So to say she was in a foul mood was an understatement.
She normally did strength training first thing in the morning and then hit the courts.
But instead of her normal lifting session, she was waiting for Daniela to arrive because, after a month, their schedules finally aligned, and their teams had set up their first official hitting session together.
It was planned right before the Miami Open at Jaz’s house in Boca Raton, Florida.
Jaz’s home was her sanctuary, so it was a compromise to allow Daniela to come here.
But it was this or the unnecessary spectacle of crowds if they went to a public court, which would definitely come once everyone saw them hitting together.
Privacy was paramount. The towering walls shielded Jaz's full-sized tennis court from prying eyes, ensuring complete focus and uninterrupted training.
A retractable awning provided shade when the sun grew too intense, while strategically placed foliage offered a natural screen from the outside world.
Living in Florida allowed Jaz to train all year long, which was necessary since tennis was essentially a year-round sport.
Inside, the house was an oasis of calm and relaxation.
Floor-to-ceiling windows offered panoramic views of the meticulously landscaped grounds, blurring the lines between indoors and out.
A state-of-the-art gym, complete with a dedicated recovery area, allowed for cross-training and injury prevention.
A spacious chef’s kitchen fueled her demanding training regimen with healthy, gourmet meals.
Everything about her house was about making sure Jaz stayed at the top.
And inviting Daniela into her space felt like an invasion.
Daniela should have been here a while ago, and Jaz was getting even more annoyed as she waited.
She had already worked with Marcos and Mike on her forehand, backhand, overhead, and lob.
She was now just hitting serves with Marcos to keep her body warm.
Just as she was tossing the ball in the air to practice her slice serve out wide, the gate screeched open at the top of her follow-through.
The noise screwed up Jaz’s timing and the ball missed outside the box by at least a foot.
She turned to see who the fuck would dare that faux pas during a top of her swing.
Daniela Kappas. Of course. She was smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world, or that she was forty-five minutes late to their agreed-upon session.
“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, testing the younger woman’s reflexes and stamina, probing for any sign of weakness.
The pace of their volleys gradually accelerated, the thwack of 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 was fucking dangerous.
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 court once 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, clean thwack of 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 a crack of 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 the racket 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 .