Match point

"30:0".

Bend your knees and kick off the ground.

Throw the ball, swing the racket.

District [-], the middle road is near the inner corner.

After serving, he entered the zone smoothly. This is not a difficult serve/receive. Nadal adjusted his footsteps a little, and was ready to attack with his forehand.

Ok?
and many more!

Nadal's shot paused for a while, and when he was waiting to hit the ball again, the hitting point was a bit wrong. He forced the force, but he couldn't control the arc of his swing. He realized that the situation was not good just after touching the ball. , and then watched the ball go straight out of bounds.

He made a mistake in receiving the serve, so Gawain served straight—

"40:0".

Nadal looked up at the sky with some annoyance, obviously, this point should not be.

what happened?

To put it simply, Gao Wen made a sneak attack on a reduced-force serve, with a speed of about 165 kilometers per hour, and squeezed Nadal's swing space through a close landing point.

In the end, Nadal successfully made a return serve error.

Of course, it is not that simple to explain in detail.

On hard courts, top players will also try to reduce force serving tactics, but the tactical purpose and serving strategy of hard courts and clay courts are completely different.

On a hard court, a reduced force serve is often used to control the landing point, which involves the opponent's movement, resulting in misplacement, reducing the quality of the return and even making a mistake in the return.

Therefore, on a hard court, the reduced force serve tends to choose a large angle, an outer corner or an inner corner, to tear the angle apart.

On clay, because the speed of the ball decreases, the power of the serve is reduced, so the receiving side may stand in the deep area of ​​the bottom line to improve their success rate of receiving the serve. This trend can be seen among all professional players, but Nadal pushed this tactic again. To a whole new level -

Generally speaking, players stand about three meters away from the bottom line to receive the serve, while Nadal will retreat to a position four or even five meters away.

The stance is stretched, which means giving the receiving side more time and space to complete the return; but it also means that when the tennis ball reaches the receiving stance, the power and spin are also weakened, which requires the return One side takes the initiative to exert force, otherwise it will be difficult for the tennis ball to fly over the net.

Therefore, on clay, a reduced-force serve often uses the opponent's position to receive the serve, further restricting the opponent's ability to use force to force the opponent to make a mistake when the force is released——

If the power is too light, the return serve will go directly to the net; if the power is too heavy, the arc may go out of bounds if you cannot control the arc.

Therefore, on clay, the reduced force serve tends to choose a position close to the body, that is, a close squeeze. Instead, it is necessary to avoid tearing the angle and let the opponent run. Once running, the run-up inertia can bring strength and speed. It can also win a certain amount of help.

However, nothing is absolute, and the arrangement and combination of tactics is always relative——

They are also served with reduced force, close squeeze on hard ground, tearing angle on clay, and occasionally appear. There is no absolutely correct tactic, only relatively correct timing.

Moreover, no matter whether it is hard court or clay, you cannot use the reduced force serve frequently, because reducing your own serve speed is tantamount to giving up the advantage of the serve and waiting to be passively beaten.

Like Nadal, from 2005 to 2014, relying entirely on the second serve to rule the clay court, this is also an unbelievable miracle that cannot be replicated. …

It can be seen from the side that in the past ten years, Nadal has reached the pinnacle of bottom line stalemate ability and unparalleled defensive counterattack ability.

Just now, Gao Wen made a sneak attack with a reduced force serve, and it was close to the forehand, challenging Nadal's strongest weapon head-on, but because of the suddenness, he achieved a miraculous effect, easily earning a point, and then won three consecutive game point--

In this game, three points, three ways to score.

This also proves Graf's point:
In fact, people have always had a wrong impression of clay, as if any match would turn into a long tug-of-war, which is not only difficult but also boring.

In fact, it is really easy to fall into the "boring" rut, but fast courts, such as grass, such as indoor carpets, and fast hard courts.

These fast venues do not leave much reaction time for the players. "Serve plus forehand" does not even need three axes, two axes are enough, and the score of solving the battle within three shots runs through the whole process, even without a round ball, and finally evolves Become a serve practice game, with no confrontation at all.

And because of that, Karlovic's game tends to be... "boring" and not meant to be offensive or demeaning, but his game is basically serve, serve, serve, and then most of the time it's a tiebreaker, once in a while Or two mistakes will determine the outcome of the game.

But the clay court is different. After the ball speed slows down, on the one hand, it gives more time to hold the ball in rounds, and on the other hand, it also gives players more space to play. The game is completed through different tactical combinations, different hitting methods, and different unexpected situations. A double test of physical strength and energy.

Of course, there is also an objective point of view. They think that the clay court is too long and too tormented. A game usually takes three hours. This is especially true with the tide of live TV sports.

From volleyball to badminton to table tennis, the reforms of different sports are actually reducing the game time, just to consider the ratings.

This is an objective fact. According to unofficial statistics, the average time for hard-court events is generally around 150 minutes, and the average time for clay-court events is about [-] minutes.

Interestingly, according to ATP official data, in the history of the Open era, the venue with the longest game time is not clay.

On the Grand Slam stage, among the top five longest games, three took place at Wimbledon, one at the Australian Open, and only one at the French Open.

Including all events, in the top ten, there are three hard courts and clay courts, two grass courts and indoor carpets, almost all fast courts.

The reason is simple. On fast courts, although there are not many rounds, the power of the serve has increased. Even a serve cannon like Karlovic with only one weapon can easily keep the serve. The difficulty of breaking serve has risen sharply, so that The chances of reaching a tie-break in each set are greatly increased.

It is conceivable that the time consumption of the game cannot be reduced. In the end, fast venues such as grass and indoor carpets are prone to super-long games.

In other words, it is one-sided, narrow, and unnecessary to discuss the difference between clay and hard courts simply based on the time spent in the game.

Each venue has its own style and characteristics.

Now, Gao Wen is reading the colors of red clay bit by bit like this——

For the fourth consecutive score, Gao Wen chose a different tactic again.

This time, it was a stalemate at the bottom line.

In clay court games, not only against Nadal, but also against most opponents, baseline rounds are a compulsory course, which is the main body of the game.

What's more, Gao Wen is no stranger to this, and this is the key to his success on hard courts, so he needs to make adjustments to match the clay court——

Rebuild your own tactical system and layout step by step.