Two things:

It turns out I'm not much interested in romance for romance's sake and that was the back 3/4th of this novel.

I was quite into the first like 60 pages(? Difficult to gauge with a digital copy) where it was about the actual tennis and a tennis rivalry--however, I know too much about the tennis and I subsequently found myself distracted by the retooled calendar (which the author admitted to doctoring upfront but it still bothered me--cutting out one half of the Sunshine Double confused my brain) and my skepticism re: the degree of discipline of the very top players.

That is to say, the protagonists are Top 5 players. Repeatedly, I found myself asking:

Are these characters drinking too much alcohol, too often?

Should they be observing more strict diets?

I liked that the protagonists of Backhanded Compliments were not USAmerican but they kinda feel too American?

Are they having too much sex?

(Why does Margaret Court exist in this universe when no other actual player does?)

Players follow their own guidelines and routines and restrictions, but even a player like Daria Kasatkina, career high ranking of 8, restricts her alcohol intake throughout the season. Several times it gets mentioned in their vlog that Natalia doesn't drink when Daria doesn't drink, i.e. most of the season and certainly during prep and tournaments (like when no alcohol was consumed at Putintseva's 2025 birthday dinner prior to the Australian Open). I've seen one player who drank beer as part of their recovery. Players might drink some of the champagne upon winning--or not; Kasatkina said she would not drink the bottle of bubbly she was gifted for winning at Eastbourne because Wimbledon was a couple days after. Pegula is sort of infamous now for having a drink, a beer (to hurry along doping control testing) or stealing Sabalenka's margarita, after a loss. Some players simply do not care and will enjoy an alcoholic beverage whenever they want. Are they the top players? I dunno.

I don't think the word "diet" ever appears in this novel but Natalia and Daria's vlog is in the players' cafeterias enough highlighting the sometimes quite bland meal choices that to some extent how often and what players eat has to be a daily consideration. It's sweets that typically get the axe. Djokovic and recently Sabalenka cutting even chocolate out of their regimens so that a bite of it at the end of a successful campaign becomes a reward.

There's an anecdote that Sue Bird told at the beginning of this interview (which is an interesting listen in its entirety) that has made me wonder about how high-performance pro athletes treat sex and if they... not schedule... but have to consider how it might affect their preparation and/or recovery, mostly re: interfere with getting enough rest:

So recovery was all I could think about. The universe in this novel has some rules about the healing powers of soul mate touch that would promote intimacy but otherwise... I don't know.

Also, kinda surprised how in actuality the teams of the protagonists are really small. No fitness coaches? No physio? No mental coach? Just one coach? No agent blowing up your phone? No sponsor obligations going into a Slam? I hunger for the minutiae that makes their lives deviate from the 9-5.

TL;DR: if your jam is soulmates AU fanfic, this novel may be for you.

In my case, this novel made me honestly wonder if the tennis fan community would ship two women as it happens in the novel in the way the fan community ships men--because I don't know if I've seen it applied to women the way it's indulged with the ATP. And that got me wondering why that's the case--which probably goes hand-in-hand with how there’s a surface idea that all the ATP men are just so buddy-buddy with each other and the women are so distant from each other when I'm sitting here like: I can show you WTA players who get meals together, room together to save money, and go on actual vacations with each other as evidenced by their socials and I don't know if the same is true for men on the ATP to the same degree. I do wonder if, putting aside the clearly different levels of interest, shipping WTA players would skew too close to scratching at real possibility rather than the fantastical fun of shipping men on a tour where historically relatively few have come out and the two openly gay active players on the ATP tour are low-ranked.