On June 10, at 2 pm Paris time, the last match of this year’s French Open and the most important match, the men’s singles final was held at the Philippe Chartier Stadium.
At this time, the time in China was nine o'clock in the evening. Although the time was slightly later, it was still a weekend night, and it was Zhang Guan's game, so there were still many viewers waiting in front of the TV, waiting to watch this game.
When Nadal entered the stadium, the audience immediately gave him warm applause. They greeted the "king" of the French Open with cheers, and the red and yellow Spanish flags surrounding the court were even more conspicuous.
When Zhang Guan came on the stage, the applause and cheers were much smaller. Zhang Guan looked around the stands and found several five-star red flags in an instant, which made Zhang Guan feel much more at ease.
"It's true, Nadal is really popular here." Zhang Guan could feel the gap between himself and Nadal from the voices of the audience.
Two years ago, 19-year-old Nadal participated in the French Open for the first time. He defeated Federer in the semi-finals and defeated Argentinian Mariano Puerta in the final, winning the first Grand Slam in his life. At that time, Nadal was known as the "Son of the French Open". It can be said that this arena is where Nadal became famous.
Now, with two French Open titles in hand, Nadal has come to this arena again. The son of the French Open in the past and the king of clay today has come to the place where he was crowned. It seems natural to achieve the "three consecutive French Open" hegemony. .
The romantic French fans shouted passionately, setting the entire stadium on fire, causing the heat in the stadium to continue to rise. There was a sense of suffocation before the game in the air, and just when the audience's endurance was about to reach its limit, the game It finally started.
"Almost the entire audience was cheering for Nadal. Today's Philippe Stadium has become Nadal's home court. I wonder if this will have a psychological impact on Zhang Guan, who is participating in the French Open final for the first time. Pressure. But Zhang Guan has experience in many major competitions. I think his psychological quality should be very strong! Okay, Zhang Guan will serve first!" The commentator suddenly paused, and two seconds later, Zhang Guan The first serve of the game began.
The tennis ball flew over the net and was touched out of bounds by Nadal.
"Serve and score! It seems that my previous worries were unnecessary. Zhang Guan was not affected by the atmosphere on the court!" the commentator said.
Next, Zhang Guan continued to serve. After a three-shot stalemate, Zhang Guan made a wide-range transfer of his forehand and scored another point.
However, Nadal obviously did not rush to chase this ball, but took two symbolic steps and stopped.
After all, this is the first game of the match between the two sides. Facing an opponent of Zhang Guan's level, Nadal, as the receiver, had no intention of breaking serve in the first game and focused on warming up, so there was no need to chase every ball. . After all, tennis requires a lot of running and a lot of large-scale movements during the game. If you don't warm up enough, you can still be easily injured.
Zhang Guan also needs to warm up. Although as a track and field athlete, especially the king of sprint events, his body will not heat up slowly, so the warm-up time is much shorter, so he can enter the game state faster.
In the first game, when the score reached 40-0, Nadal gradually began to find his form. After he pulled the score to 40-15, he finally lost a goal and Zhang Guan temporarily led 1-0.
In the second game between the two sides, Nadal's state continued to improve. Although he did not serve an ACE or score directly, his perfect forehand combined with active attack still won his serve relatively easily, and the two sides ended the match. 1-1 draw.
After two games, although the score between the two sides was 1-1, both sides knew that the real game had just begun. The first two games could be said to be a warm-up process for both players, and it could also be said to be a mutual exchange. The process of testing, and then the real fierce confrontation officially began.
At the beginning of the third game, Zhang Guan took the lead and scored the first point with an ACE ball. However, with the second ball, Zhang Guan encountered strong resistance from Nadal.
Nadal did not choose a landing point very close to the edge. The direction of his hit was still very stable, but Nadal strengthened the spin of the ball. The tennis ball had a strong top spin and would always bounce high after landing. While Zhang Guan was hitting back with his forehand, he felt that the ball was so uncomfortable to catch.
"This ball is so difficult to control!" Zhang Guan still underestimated the spin of Nadal's forehand, and the return ball was a little short, and Nadal seized the opportunity to counterattack.
This is Nadal's forehand, which always makes the opponent very uncomfortable. Even if it's not fast, even if it doesn't have a very tricky landing point, it will definitely have the strongest spin in the world.
I saw Nadal swinging his forehand, and the tennis ball flew directly to Zhang Guan's backhand. The quality of Nadal's shot was very good. For Nadal, who is left-handed, it is very comfortable to use his forehand to attack Zhang Guan's backhand.
"The rotation is still strong!" Zhang Guan has already felt this. In this shot, Nadal hit the forehand with both hands, while Zhang Guan hit the backhand with one hand. He must have suffered a loss in terms of strength. If he chooses the conventional method of catching the ball, it is easy to make mistakes, so Zhang Guan He simply took advantage of his strength and hit the ball back over the net with a backhand chip.
"Backhand chip! Zhang Guan indeed used a backhand chip. His choice was the same as Federer." Nadal was overjoyed. This was the result he wanted to face the most.
When Nadal and Federer played against each other before, when Nadal attacked Federer's backhand with his forehand, Federer would make the same choice and use a backhand chip. This seemed to be a very reasonable response. But on the clay court, facing Federer's backhand chipping, Nadal can always find ways to use his forehand pressure to create more offensive opportunities.
Therefore, at this time, Nadal was quite familiar with this backhand cutting move. He directly chose to press forward continuously and won the ball, which tied the score in the third game to 15-15.
…
"My backhand happened to match Nadal's forehand. It's such a disadvantage to play like this!" Zhang Guan thought for a while and decided to rely on his forehand to deal with Nadal.
This time, Zhang Guan chose to hit back with a forehand after serving, and the attack was also on Nadal's backhand.
Nadal held the racket with both hands and returned the ball to Zhang Guan. The ball was not fast and the landing point was not deep, but from these two points, it was a very easy ball to catch.
However, Zhang Guan remembered his coach's warning. Nadal's backhand still had a strong spin, so even though the ball didn't land deep enough and it seemed easy to catch the ball, Zhang Guan still treated it with caution.
Sure enough, Nadal's backhand still had strong spin. When the ball landed, the height of its bounce confirmed this to Zhang Guan.
"Don't think that you are the only one who can hit high-spin balls!" Zhang Guan hit hard. This time, he was also preparing to use topspin to deal with Nadal.
The tennis ball flew over the net, and Nadal moved quickly to catch the ball.
The next moment, the tennis ball bounced high and rushed directly to the top of Nadal's head.
"Top spin, what a strong top spin!" Nadal exclaimed in his heart.
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