thank you! and thank you for this ask i'm always dying to talk about this au that i am not at all writing

in case you missed it: the germ of the idea here

in essence we'd set this in a modern-day westeros where each of the regions has its own regional tennis association: eg, crownlands tennis association (CTA). correspondingly, the slams:

storm's end - outdoor hardcourt.

king's landing - outdoor hardcourt.

highgarden - outdoor grass.

sunspear - outdoor clay.

i did toy with making king's landing our wimbledon equivalent since, yk, it's kind of the narrative lodestone of the tennis calendar? or i'd put it on clay to suit its climate a little better. i'm still deciding.

what's key is that ashford is a 500 event on grass, being in the reach, and also why dunk thinks he has a decent shot there, since the grass tends to favour big servers like himself. so then of course if it's a grass tournament it has to be a lead-up to the grass slam, and i do feel like KL has to be the climax of the story so it can't be happening just a few weeks after ashford... right?

there is a snippet at the bottom of this post i promise lol

but regardless, at ashford, baelor gets dunk that wildcard and starts unofficially coaching him; dunk also miraculously starts winning. he meets aerion in the final and it's a bloodbath. aerion smashes two different racquets and only avoids getting defaulted by the skin of his teeth. dunk, steadied by having baelor in his box — this is the first time he's shown up for one of dunk's matches for all the media to see, which is ALSO a bloodbath — keeps his head and closes out a tight three-setter — 2-6, 6-4, 7(7)-6(0) — to win the trophy and, more importantly, the points.

high off this win, something definitely Happens between dunk & baelor, likely just a stolen kiss in the locker room; dunk has to go to press right after and that's when the shitstorm starts. baelor retired from tennis because he was tired and in pain and now the whole family thing's become a circus, which is what he was hoping to avoid; alongside that, he feels guilty for breaching 'professional boundaries' with dunk; they part ways for a little while.

dunk scrapes through the rest of grass season on those 500 points and manages to get himself in the main draw of highgarden, which i guess we are making wimby. he makes a good run and then he comes up against none other than valarr targaryen in his R3 (who's coached by, let's say, bloodraven). this is when valarr gets a career-ending injury and baelor is of course watching in the crowd. dunk feels HORRIBLE about this and goes to baelor/valarr to express how damn sorry about it he is; ultimately, left alone with baelor, there's tension, nothing more quite happens yet.

it's when dunk goes out in the QF that baelor comes to him, this time, tells him he did well, he's proud of him, but he could do better. offers to coach him for real. there's already a media storm: what's a little more?

and dunk's like well. nice offer. but grass season's over now (i might have to mess with the tennis calendar here lmao), what the fuck am i supposed to do on clay? but baelor being baelor can provide both the resources — better racquets, better strings, to get the topspin dunk's been lacking — and the expertise to do something about that.

and then they kiss about it. or something.

something else that fascinates me about this (my own au) is the implications of multi-year seasons on the tennis calendar. i guess in winter they just. shut everything down and move indoors? which would of course mean that certain players and play-styles are favoured in some years over others, which would totally throw the points system out of whack. a logistical nightmare i'm very glad it's not actually my job to solve.

anyway i promised a snippet so here's a little something. there's more where this came from but nothing at all cohesive:

By the amazing @lopata-four 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

LOOK AT ALL THE DETAILS IN THEIR CLOTHEEEEESSSSS

every alternate week, her best friend would come to our house with a tupperware full of chicken spaghetti. they'd stick us in front of a tv with a stack of disney vhs tapes and go through each room, finding every dirty dish, and then spend the afternoon at the kitchen sink, washing each dish by hand while gossiping.

“–People will, of course, say that I killed my brother intentionally. The gods know it's a lie, but gossip will haunt me until my dying day…"

When in reality, if you go 'What year is this?!?' people will just say '2024. Crazy huh.' and you go 'Wtf where has my youth gone.'

"Hey, what month is it?"

Stumbling into a diner and asking "What town is this" isn't weird, the workers will think you're on a road trip

If you ask them "Where's the nearest Nano Deck?" they'll assume it's a shop they've never heard of and say "Sorry, I don't know where any of those are"

Going into a store and telling a cashier "I need pods for my comm device" will just get you a "Never heard of those, maybe try Radio Shack?"