Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 625: The rogue style of the world's number one server! (4K)

This time, Chen Ran arrived in North America as a 13-time Grand Slam champion, which also caused quite a stir.

In any case, although he misses many Masters every year, he has never missed a Masters held in the United States.

Whether it is the "Sunshine Double" or the "Cincinnati Masters", Chen Ran participates every year and never misses it.

You see how much he values ​​the competitions held in the United States!

In addition, people were also surprised to find that Chen Ran had not won a Masters title this year.

This year marks the fifth year since the debut of this talented tennis player.

In the previous four years, Chen Ran did not win any Masters titles in any year. So what about this year? Will this record be continued?
Chen Ran has always attached great importance to the American market, and he should not let those American fans down.

But on the other hand, the US Open is always the most important part of the North American season, and even tennis fans all over the world are paying attention to this US Open with special significance.

Can Chen Ran win the 14th Grand Slam title of his career here, in the territory of the previous champion Sampras?

Chen Ran is very likely to achieve both the annual Grand Slam and the number of Grand Slams equal to that of Pete Sampras at the same time.

So when Chen Ran came to Cincinnati again, all the questions were about his journey to the US Open.

Perhaps from this moment on, the real goat of tennis will be replaced.

"We don't care about Grand Slams, or Golden Slams, or even the recently popular Super Golden Slams. The number of Grand Slams is what determines the level of achievement of a professional tennis player."

Sampras' supporters and some American media have been emphasizing this.

The reason is simple. Every Grand Slam title is worth a fortune, and it has nothing to do with whether you complete the Grand Slam or not.

For example, Sampras has seven Wimbledon titles, but isn't that less than the one French Open title he's missing?

The first thing is to compare the number of Grand Slams. Once the two people are tied, they will compare other achievements.

The American media spoke with reason and evidence.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with this statement. For example, five Grand Slams are always greater than four Grand Slams, even if the latter includes one of each of the four Grand Slams.

Chen Ran couldn't refute this statement either.

He knows very well that what really matters is the number of Grand Slams.

Fortunately, he is in a good mood and is very calm.

As the No. 54 seed, he enjoyed a first-round bye in the Cincinnati Masters, which has draws.

However, starting from the second round, Chen Ran began to enjoy the treatment of the central court.

He plays every game in a stadium that can accommodate 1 people.

The tournament organizing committee was somewhat worried whether Chen Ran would hold back, just like he did in the previous clay court season.

But their worries are unnecessary, because Chen Ran's advantage in the North American season is far greater than that in the clay court season.

At the French Open, with the presence of Nadal, the strongest clay bug in history, Chen Ran would specially formulate targeted plans and tactics.

But this is the US Open, his favorite fast hard courts.

Chen Ran has even dominated the North American season for the past two years and is a well-deserved king.

He will definitely give it his all.

In the second round, Chen Ran went into the game with ease, defeating a qualifying opponent 2-6, 1-, and easily securing a spot in the top .

This made the Cincinnati organizing committee excited to put up a billboard: Let us welcome the return of the king of the “North American Season”!
The strong Chen Ran will definitely be a guarantee of box office and ratings.

Chen Ran's popularity today is far ahead in the entire professional tennis world.

Whether it is horizontal or vertical comparison, it is meaningless.

Then it is a comparison across time and space.

Due to the strong performance of Chen Ran throughout the game, his popularity has surpassed Federer of the same period in his previous life.

grace?

For sports fans who like passionate sports, Chen Ran's comprehensive and sharp playing style is more popular.

Competitive sports is not the place to discuss human relationships or elegance.

Chen Ran made great progress all the way without losing a single set and made it into the semi-finals.

However, in the semi-finals, he met an American superstar who has begun to rise in recent years and is also his old acquaintance, and his defeated opponent - Isner.

Isner, 22 years old, is actually far inferior to Roddick in overall strength.

But this guy has attracted the attention of many American fans in recent years because of his special playing style.

Roddick's serve was violent enough, but Isner's serve was even more violent than Roddick's.

Those American fans who are simple-minded and strong-limbed may not understand the tactical designs in tennis matches, but they like to watch this simple and violent server, so they have become fans of Isner.

If Nadal is the best clay court player of all time, Isner is considered the best server of all time.

If we only look at the serve, Isner's serve level is even higher than Chen Ran's.

Of course, this is also because Isner's height of 2 meters gives him a huge advantage in serving.

In tennis, the taller you are, the better your serve will be, but of course your mobility will be severely limited.

Isner was obviously also good at finding hot spots, and immediately said: He knew it would be difficult for him to defeat Chen Ran in the semi-finals, but his goal was to enter a double tie-break.

That is, in two sets of matches, there are double tie-breaks.

This shows how confident this guy is in his serve.

"In his previous life, Djokovic possessed unparalleled serve receiving skills at his peak, but when facing a certain opponent, he still felt extremely desperate about how to break the serve. That opponent was Isner." Chen Ran thought of the interesting stories from his previous life.

As strong as Djokovic is, he had to drag the game into a tiebreak when facing Isner.

Because he found it difficult to break Isner's serve.

How to deal with the amazing first serve success rate and serves of 210+ kilometers at any time?
It would be better if it was red soil.

But this terrible cannon-type serve, when played on grass and North American hard courts, is indeed a bit too bullying, as if it were cheating.

In this semi-final, Chen Ran also deeply experienced the headaches that Djokovic had in his previous life.

The giant 22-year-old is already at the peak of his career.

His serving strength has improved a lot compared to the last time he played against Chen Ran.

"Fortunately, I didn't meet this guy at Wimbledon, otherwise...how to break the serve would be a real problem." Chen Ran recalled an interesting story about Wimbledon in his previous life.

Isner and his opponent played for three full days at Wimbledon, and the fifth set ended in a long fight, with the score at 70:68!

In this deciding set alone, the two sides played for 491 minutes, which is terrifying.

It is precisely because of this that the organizers began to consider canceling the long-set decider.

At this moment, the game seemed to be like the long-lasting Wimbledon match, with both sides serving aces.

Of course, this also made the fans at the scene very excited.

"I've been playing tennis all my life, and I've never encountered a love game like today."

Chen Ran also smiled bitterly when he was taking a break.

In the first set, the two sides tied 6-6!

Among them, Isner gave Chen Ran 4 love games, while Chen Ran gave the opponent 6 love games.

Chen Ran gave away 6 love games, which was not surprising to the fans.

But Isner gave Chen Ran 4 love games, which made many fans drop their jaws.

As the best serve receiver in the world, he was given 4 love games by his opponent in one set. Especially in these 4 games, Isner directly gave aces in two of them.

Chen Ran even had an illusion that the other party was a human-shaped cannon, continuously firing cannons towards him.

"This is men's tennis. Can you see this picture of women's tennis?"

The American audience, who were eating popcorn, were also shouting excitedly.

They are simple-minded. Every time they see an ace, they will just exclaim, "Oh, my God!" just like they see an NBA player's powerful slam dunk.

"Men's tickets are more expensive than women's. There's a reason why they're more expensive."

Although the prize money for male and female players is the same in the four Grand Slam tournaments, in the tour tournaments, especially in tournaments at the Masters level, there is still a huge gap in prize money between men and women.

Taking the Cincinnati Masters as an example, the men's singles champion received a prize of $50, while the women's singles champion only received $30, which is only 60%.

This situation exists in many tours.

But there are exceptions, such as the 1000th China Open, where the prize money for the women's singles champion is even higher than the men's singles champion of the Shanghai Masters. (This is indeed the case in this time and space, for example, the 2023 China Open women's singles champion is $130 million, while the men's singles champion of the Shanghai Masters is $126 million.)
This also makes the China Open Women's Tournament second only to the four Grand Slams and the year-end finals.

At least in women's tennis, the fifth Grand Slam at the China Open is well-deserved.

At this moment, Chen Ran was drinking water, and the camera scanned his face. He was smiling bitterly.

It has been a long time since the world's number one player encountered such a predicament, especially on the North American hard court where he is good at.

"I dare say, if this was clay, Chen Ran would have easily won the game, because Isner, like Roddick, is a clay-clay rookie!" the host joked.

As for the American man Isner, he just smiled without comment after hearing this.

What the other party said is correct, my red soil is just a piece of cake.

But he was proud of his performance today, he really dragged the best player in the world into a game seven.

Of course, he knew it was extremely difficult for him to win the first set, almost like a fantasy.

The reason is simple. Isner has never scored even a single point from Chen Ran's serve.

Even the big American man thought clearly that he had no hope of breaking Chen Ran's serve, or even creating a little pressure.

So in order to reduce energy consumption, he simply gave up.

Whenever Chen Ran served, he didn't struggle at all.

This is a totally rogue way of playing!

Even Chen Ran was speechless.

Isner just wanted to see how Chen Ran would break his serve.

He is already satisfied with being able to reach the semi-finals of the Masters.

This result is Isner's best ever.

He wants to create some topics now.

As for Chen Ran, he sometimes didn't want to take Isner's serve too seriously.

Once, his racket received the opponent's serve.

The speed of the ball must be almost 230 kilometers. The huge force coming from the racket made his arms numb.

How is this played?
He simply returned the ball out of bounds.

Although there is no physical contact in tennis, the physical confrontation is very intense.

It's not just your running and swinging, but also because tennis is heavy, you will feel the huge force coming from the flying tennis ball.

Isner's serve made Chen Ran experience what it means to serve like a cannonball.

No wonder the Big Three in the previous life were helpless against this guy’s serve.

“My hands are numb!”

Chen Ran shook his arms and cursed inwardly.

Isner saw this and smiled triumphantly.

This guy didn't expect to win, he just wanted to make some news.

In the tie-break, Chen Ran served.

Isner, the giant, stood with his hands on his hips, not even moving.

"..."

Chen Ran was speechless. He had deliberately slowed down the speed of the ball when serving, hoping to maintain a stalemate with his opponent for a few more shots to consume his energy.

Because he found that Isner's physical energy consumption was not serious because he played a completely bad game in Chen Ran's serve.

Although this person is very tall, at 2 meters, but you know, Isner is only 08 years old, which is the time when he is in the best physical condition.

So in this situation, the opponent still adopted a bad playing style in Chen Ran's serve game, and the physical energy consumption was almost negligible.

Chen Ran was also happy and gave this guy a thumbs up.

You guys are really good at making things happen!
Isner also smiled innocently and shouted, "Break, you can only break, I will raise the white flag immediately. You know, a mini break is much easier than breaking a serve."

That's right.

But Isner, who was full of energy and in good shape, hit incredible aces one after another.

There were some balls that Chen Ran didn't even want to catch.

why?
After receiving the ball, there is a high probability that the return ball will go out of bounds.

Or maybe the quality of the return ball is too poor and the opponent hits it dead with one shot.

After all, Isner is a man who not only has a powerful serve, but also a very powerful forehand.

"Tell me what's the fun of this kind of game? There's barely any extra shots."

Chen Ran complained to the referee.

The referee was an American, and he also laughed cheerfully: "Maybe Latin Americans don't like this style of play, but we Americans love to watch it. It's too violent. Haha, I like it."

Chen Ran was speechless. This was the American aesthetic.

At this moment, the tiebreak between the two sides has reached 15 to 15!

Chen Ran felt that he hardly sweated at all, because there was never any stalemate during the multiple shots.

One wrong serve!
Isner made a rare first serve error.

Mini break opportunity is here!

Chen Ran perked up instantly.

Then, the tennis ball whizzed in again.

boom!
Another 220km+ ACE ball.

What the hell?

Isner spread his hands and said proudly: "If I serve second, what's the difference between that and giving away points? Anyway, I treat all second serves as first serves, even in tiebreaks. As for whether it is successful or not, it depends on God's will."

He thought clearly that any serve was a serve.

If you can't get in, you'll get points for free. If you get in, you'll have a high probability of getting points

What kind of rogue style of play is this?

……

(End of this chapter)