the Clipperton legend: win-or-die-in-the-attempt, made grotesquely literal
he brought the gun-case and Glock 17 out on the court with him along with his towels and water-jug and sticks and gear bag, and from his very first appearance on the East Coast jr. tour made clear his intention to blow his own brains out publicly, right there on court, if he should lose, ever, even once.
Context
Clipperton carries the sidearm onto the court "along with his towels and water-jug and sticks and gear bag" — the gun filed among the ordinary tennis kit — and stakes his life on every match: he'll shoot himself "right there on court, if he should lose, ever, even once." It's the one move junior tennis's whole competitive apparatus has no answer for. By raising the stakes from a ranking point to his own brains, Clipperton makes beating him unthinkable and so makes the sport itself stop working around him.