Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 474 The journey to defend the title (Part )

In the following rounds of competition, Chen Ran continued to perform extremely strongly.

In several consecutive games, he had the same score of 3-0, sweeping the opponent simply and rudely, with almost no challenge, and even the opponent's break point rarely appeared.

At the end of last year, Chen Ran missed the European indoor season and the year-end season in Houston. At the same time, the world-famous online game "World of Warcraft" represented by his company was launched into public beta with great fanfare and achieved unprecedented success.

This has made many people in the outside world suspicious. They feel that Chen Ran, who has already achieved the "Golden Slam" achievement, may not be focusing on tennis anymore.

But after the first few rounds of the Australian Open, people were surprised to find that Chen Ran's competitive state was surprisingly good.

After four rounds, he surpassed Federer and became the favorite to win.

Everyone even feels that Chen Ran seems to have evolved compared to last year.

"Actually, this is not evolution..."

In response to this question, Chen Ran said to reporters very calmly, "I rested for a long enough time, but I did not miss training. In addition, because I have not competed for a long time, I am full of hunger and thirst."

"This made me in surprisingly good condition during this Australian Open competition."

Of course, during this period, Chen Ran had been maintaining competition mode in the "simulation training ground", so he was actually always in competition mode.

It’s just that outsiders don’t know.

"Sufficient rest time is an important reason why Chen Ran is in such great shape at the Australian Open?"

"We acknowledge that in this day and age, tennis players have a heavy workload."

Some foreign media are analyzing this situation very carefully
"But it's not just tennis that has heavy competition burdens. The same is true for other sports. The difference is that tennis players are only responsible for themselves. They can quit if they want to without any mental burden."

"Of course, maybe only a top player like Chen Ran can do whatever he wants."

“Because he doesn’t have to worry about bonuses and points.”

"We even suspect that one day in the future, this guy may only play four majors throughout the year."

Faced with such analysis by foreign media, Chen Ran gave a very frank answer: "It's possible! It would be great if it could be like this... It's not right, at least I can't refuse the Chinese season, right?"

"Of course, plus the year-end. I was really injured last year and played a lot of games, so I had no choice but to not participate in the year-end. This was really not my intention."

what?
We are just joking, are you serious?
These foreign reporters were immediately speechless.

"Isn't the Masters important to you?"

Indeed, for some top players, it is difficult for them to have the opportunity to win a Grand Slam championship in their careers, so the Masters championship has become an important honor.

But for top-level players like Chen Ran, the evaluation criteria are always Grand Slams, and sometimes even Olympic and year-end championships are excluded.

For example, in the era when the Big Three competed, even though Nadal had an Olympic gold medal and Djokovic had a gold medal, Federer, who had the most Grand Slams at the time, was still known as the tennis goat.

It wasn't until Djokovic's number of Grand Slams surpassed Federer's that some people gradually began to admit that he was the goat.

Chen Ran has obviously seen through this, and is very clear that in the future, when people judge his historical status, they will only look at how many Grand Slams he has won, not how many Masters championships he has won, not to mention that he now has 7 A Masters champion.

As NBA superstar Kobe Bryant said, what kind of champion is the Western Conference champion? Why should the flag be raised in the Lakers arena? Although a certain executive deputy goat even raised the flag for the mid-season championship.

"Here today, I will reveal my thoughts..."

Chen Ran looked around and continued: "My enthusiasm for participating in the Masters in the future depends on my results in the Grand Slam. You understand."

The implication of this statement could not be more obvious. If his performance in the Grand Slam is very outstanding, the Masters may be a dispensable option.

If other players had said this, everyone would have ridiculed him or even ridiculed him for being ignorant.

But when it came out of Chen Ran's mouth, it sounded so natural.

They even believed that this guy would actually do it.

"Next question..." another reporter from Switzerland asked, "Chen, your opponent in the next round is Wawrinka from our country, who is also your doubles partner. What do you think of this game?"

"The long-awaited duel! After winter training, my doubles partner's strength has indeed undergone a radical change."

After a pause, Chen Ran said in a very positive tone: "I still say the same thing... Stanislas will definitely win a Grand Slam in the future."

At least for now, Wawrinka is far better than Federer at the same age.

"But your results in doubles don't seem to be very good. You were stopped in the first round. Do you really have a tacit understanding of your cooperation?"

"Ha... this is only our first time working together in doubles. The tacit understanding needs to be cultivated, which takes time. Maybe a few months, maybe longer..." Chen Ran said what he had already prepared. In fact, the two of them didn't bother to pay attention to the doubles at all. They simply regarded the doubles as a pre-match warm-up for the singles.

"Chen, thank you for your answer. This game is very popular in Switzerland, and you are the most popular foreign star among the Swiss people."

"Thanks……"

Chen Ran actually wanted to ask, since I am so popular with you Swiss people, then the famous Swiss bank will open a VIP account for me for free? But then he thought that Swiss banks were not as reliable as they were rumored to be.

……

In the 2005 Australian Open, a total of five players born after 85 participated.

Among them, Djokovic, who is only 18 years old, was stopped in the second round, while Isner, who has terrible serving ability, broke into the top 32.

Then Nadal, who is known as the Spanish super star, persisted until the second week of the Australian Open and broke into the top 16.

Finally, there are Chen Ran and Wawrinka, both of whom entered the quarterfinals.

Today's Nadal is not evenly matched in terms of strength. His strength on clay is particularly outstanding, but he is still slightly inferior to Wawrinka on hard courts.

But Chen Ran knows very well that when this year's clay court season starts, the Spaniard will shock the world.

He is also looking forward to this and can't wait to play against the future king of clay on the clay court.

However, after the quarter-finals kicked off, the first upset occurred.

It's Safin again!

Five-set battle!

The Russian Tsar once again defeated Federer, the top seed in the tournament and currently the number one in the world, with a score of 3-2 and entered the semi-finals.

So far, Federer has lost three games in a row against Safin.

He lost to Safin in three important tournaments: Paris Masters, Houston year-end, and Australian Open.

After the game, the media around the world ridiculed Federer for his defeat.

"Your true strength is simply not comparable to Safin."

"It's so funny to be number one in the world."

"If it were Chen Ran, he would never give Safin any chance."

But what no one knows is that this Australian Open championship should have belonged to the Russian.

This will also be his last brilliant performance.

Another quarter-final match also resulted in a big upset.

Hewitt, who was ridiculed as "premature" by the American media, defeated the third seed Roddick.

Although the US Open and Australian Open are held every other year, they can also be regarded as back-to-back Grand Slams.

However, Roddick was almost defeated by Hewitt in back-to-back Grand Slam tournaments in shocking fashion.

If you can't beat me at home, then you'll have no chance at home.

The expressions of the American reporters at the scene were not to mention depressed.

They had just finished taunting Federer with their front foot, and then Roddick was immediately upset by Hewitt.

"Andy, you loser!"

"After this Australian Open, you won't be able to keep the top three spots."

The reporter from Beautiful Country shouted loudly.

"Get out of here!" Roddick said angrily.

"It's really sad that the hopes of American tennis are pinned on you." These reporters continued to tit for tat.

But the cruel fact is that for the first time in 20 years, there will be no Americans in the top three ATP rankings.

……

(End of this chapter)