Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 626 Chen Ran and Li Na shine in Cincinnati (4K)

Since you are such a scoundrel, I won't be polite either.

Therefore, whenever Isner's serve was successful, Chen Ran would gently rub his nose, then turn around and walk to the other end of the court.

Like Isner, he gave up on returning serve.

It's just that he gave up receiving the first serve, while the opponent gave up both the first and second serves.

Chen Ran never thought about the possibility of losing.

Because as long as he is in the serving position, even if Isner returns the ball, he has a hundred ways to easily defeat his opponent.

As a result, the scores of the two continued to rise alternately.

In the blink of an eye, it was 30 to 30!

This score has broken the record for the score in a tiebreak.

Isner has an astonishingly high first serve success rate, which is also due to his 2-meter height and gibbon-like arms, giving this guy a clear advantage in his own serve.

It is completely easy to hit whatever you point at.

So during the tie-break, Isner only made three first serve errors, but this guy still used the "first serve" method when he served the second serve, and he actually succeeded every time.

This big man from the United States, with strong limbs and a simple mind, has never considered the problem of second serve.

In short, treat all serves as first serves, either you score points or you lose points due to a second serve error.

Chen Ran also wanted to watch the fun and see how long this guy could last.

At least there is a topic for this semi-final.

Finally, when the score was tied at 35-, Isner made a double fault.

When this guy keeps treating his second serve as his first serve, double faults are inevitable.

However, Chen Ran did not expect that this guy's serve was so hot that he could last so long.

It was only at this moment that he completed a mini break.

When the "mini break" occurred, the game became simple. Chen Ran easily saved his first serve point and won the first set with 37 to 35.

How long has the fight been going on?
It's been almost an hour and a half.

But in fact, for Chen Ran, his physical energy consumption may not even be as much as that of playing for half an hour.

"John, is this fun?"

When both sides walked off the court to rest, Chen Ran couldn't help but shout.

Damn, he felt like he had never played such a boring semi-final.

This American is really shameless.

"Hey, this is really interesting. You and I have fought against each other several times. Don't you think this fight puts the greatest pressure on you?" Isner smiled.

"I'm under a lot of pressure. Do you think you have a chance to break even if it's a miracle?" Chen Ran's face darkened and he retorted mercilessly.

Isner was stunned for a moment, and felt that what the other party said made sense.

But he still said stubbornly: "Chen... I will stick to my style of play."

Isner firmly believed that he could create more trouble for Chen Ran.

Hey, my serve is the best in the world.

He felt that he finally had a technology that was the best in the world.

Is Roddick's cannon very powerful?

Now, I have surpassed him.

After the second set started, the progress of the game was still exactly the same as the first set.

Isner didn't think about how to play the game well and was still immersed in how to hit more aces.

This guy was totally enjoying it and almost treated this semi-final as his serving practice.

However, Chen Ran's mentality was also very good, and he was not in a hurry to break the serve.

Since you want to play, I'll play with you.

Anyway, I'm leading by one set, there's no way I can lose this game.

The host of the scene went from being very interested at the beginning to being uninterested now: "Oh my God, I am going to fall asleep. I never thought that one day I would get tired of playing aces."

When he was commenting on games in the past, he thought the more aces the better.

What now?
Ace balls came one after another, and players on both sides sent aces to each other crazily. Multi-shot stalemates were rarely seen.

This almost drove the commentator crazy.

Why are you torturing me like this?
The commentator also noticed that Chen Ran deliberately reduced the speed and spin of the ball several times on his serve, trying to lure Isner into a multi-shot stalemate.

However, this American giant thought very clearly and refused to be fooled.

He would just hit back a few times, and if he found that he couldn't score, he would give up decisively.

This guy made up his mind not to fight with Chen Ran any further.

So from the beginning of the game until now, he didn't get even a single point in Chen Ran's serve.

Or it could be said that Isner never expected to get a point from Chen Ran's serve.

The two sides entered a tiebreak in the second set.

This time, because Isner served aces throughout the game, his serve in the tie-break became very unstable.

In fact, Isner had made several double faults in previous regular-game matches.

But because in a regular game, you must win at least 4 points to beat your opponent, an occasional double fault will not affect the overall outcome.

However, the tie-break is different. Any mini break caused by double faults will play a decisive role.

Isner also realized that after serving for nearly three hours, his serving condition had declined, which increased the possibility of failure when he used the first serve mode on the second serve.

Once the mini break happened, the suspense of the game would instantly disappear.

Because Isner had no ability to create any pressure on his opponent under Chen Ran's serve.

He still hasn't scored a point.

So, after Isner's serving condition declined, for the sake of safety, he adopted the conservative "second serve mode" for the first time in his second serve.

He felt somewhat fortunate that even if he served second, he would still have a great chance of keeping the serve point.

However, the next second, his luck was completely shattered.

Chen Ran was waiting for this moment.

Facing the opponent's first real "second serve" in this game, Chen Ran was not polite at all.

He pushed off the ground suddenly, then slightly turned his body sideways. Then Chen Ran swung the racket like a whip and smashed the flying tennis ball out hard.

There was a crisp "bang" sound.

The tennis ball landed in a straight line in front of Chen Ran.

ACE return of serve!

Isner stared at the ball in amazement, his huge body not reacting at all.

Is this the world's best serve receiving ability?
The quality of my second serve just now was actually quite good, and it was not easy for the receiving side to handle it.

As a result, Chen Ran hit the ball to death with one shot, without making any moves.

what does this mean?
As long as he served second, it would be the same as giving away points for Chen Ran.

This is terrible! Chen Ran's serve ace completely destroyed Isner's heart.

In the tie-break of the second set, this guy's serving level dropped rapidly and he was completely absent-minded.

In the end, Chen Ran won the second tie-break with an absolute crushing advantage of 7 to 1.

After the game, Isner was exhausted.

Throughout the entire game, this guy was thinking about how to shock Chen Ran with his serve.

What's more, his height, physical fitness and running ability are far inferior to Chen Ran's.

"I lost, but this match lasted two tie-breaks, so Chen Ran must be very tired," Isner thought.

Then the next moment, the American man was completely speechless.

Chen Ran walked to the sidelines and wanted to pick up a towel to wipe his sweat, but he hesitated, touched his forehead, found that there was not much sweat, and then put the towel back.

Suddenly, Isner felt like he had received ten thousand critical hits!

Could it be that you worked so hard to play two tie-breaks with me, but you didn't even sweat at all?

It doesn't seem impossible.

Whenever Chen Ran serves, the opponent basically wins a point as long as he serves the ball into the serving area.

In fact, in terms of aces, Chen Ran gave me more than I gave to the opponent.

"God, this is so humiliating!"

Isner slapped his forehead, thinking that he should improve his serve receiving and baseline ball support.

Of course, he was still proud of his serve in this game.

……

Two days later, the final of the Cincinnati Masters began.

First up was the women's singles final.

Li Na, the golden flower from China, was in excellent form and defeated all the top players along the way and made it into the finals.

This is also the first time that Li Na has entered the final of the WTA1000 tournament.

The 25-year-old Li Na seems to have matured a lot compared to before. She no longer explodes at critical moments of the game like she used to.

Zheng Jie, who once won the French Open, seems to have overdrawn her limits. Apart from occasional flashes of brilliance in the past two years, she has mostly withdrawn from the ranks of top players.

As a tennis player, your technique can only determine your lower limit, while your body truly determines your upper limit.

In fact, at this point in the original time and space, Zheng Jie has not yet reached her true peak.

But in this time and space, because of the butterfly effect caused by Chen Ran, Zheng Jie went solo early and formed a team. The competitions she played were basically 500 tournaments, 1000 tournaments, or top-level events such as Grand Slams, and she rarely played 250 tournaments.

This large number of high-intensity competitions also overdrawn her physical limits in advance.

Female version of Michael Chang?
The two are indeed very similar in terms of tactical characteristics and running positions.

Although Zhang Depei's body is not very strong, it is very durable and rarely gets injured. However, since winning the French Open, Zheng Jie has suffered injuries of varying degrees, which has caused her competitiveness to decline year by year.

By 2007, Li Na, who was still in the system and had not yet gone solo, had caught up and surpassed Zheng Jie in performance.

This also made Chen Ran exclaim in surprise.

Li Na in 1982 was obviously more durable than Zheng Jie in 1983 because her physical condition was more outstanding.

Especially Li Na's forehand, which is very fierce and has the shadow of her peak in her previous life.

It’s no coincidence that the world No. 2, two-time Grand Slam winner, was only slightly behind Serena Williams in her prime.

In this women's singles final, since Chen Ran's girlfriend Ivanovic lost to Safina in the semi-finals, Chen Ran announced that she would guide Li Na in this final as a temporary coach.

If the final was between Ivanovic and Li Na, then Chen Ran would have to avoid it.

This time, he directed Li Na on the spot, which can be seen as a rehearsal for the Yanjing Olympics.

Why not the US Open?
I'm aiming for my 14th Grand Slam, so I don't have the time.

Cincinnati is more suitable.

Perhaps Chen Ran's existence has cast a huge shadow on Safina.

Just like he once brought tremendous pressure to Safina's brother Safin in a game.

This kind of psychological pressure seems to have penetrated into the blood of this brother and sister.

In the end, under Chen Ran's on-the-spot command, Li Na performed like a god, defeating Safina 6-3 and 6-4, winning the first Masters title in her career.

After winning the championship, Li Na was so excited that she lay on the ground with her face up, almost covering her face and crying.

At this moment, she has not thought about the Grand Slam championship, and feels that it is too far away from her.

After all, today's WTA is full of stars.

You can cheat a little in the Masters, but the Grand Slams are difficult.

But now, Li Na is so excited that she is crying with joy after winning the Cincinnati Masters.

Next to Chen Ran, Li Na's fiancé Jiang Shan was also standing there smiling foolishly with excitement.

His already very small eyes had narrowed into slits due to joy and were almost invisible.

But I am really happy.

Jiang Shan accompanied his fiancée in battles all over the country, and now he finally has a heavyweight championship, which makes the trip worthwhile.

"Wife, good job!"

"And Coach Chen Ran, thank you so much for your on-the-spot command this time. It was amazing."

Jiang Shan was a little incoherent, but he was very grateful to Chen Ran.

"It's a piece of cake!" Chen Ran smiled. "You can think of this competition as a rehearsal for the Olympics."

"Tell Sister Na to try to gain as much glory as possible before the Yanjing Olympics, because after the Olympics, I won't have the energy to continue to command on the spot, haha..." Chen Ran said with a smile.

"I understand, I understand. I'm sorry to trouble you this time!" Jiang Shan replied immediately.

The smooth progress in this final was mainly due to Chen Ran’s contribution.

Otherwise, it will probably be a tough battle, and it is unclear who will win or lose.

However, Chen Ran thought of another point: whether the result of this game meant a landmark turning point for Chinese women's tennis.

The number one Chinese golden flower will begin to transition from Zheng Jie to Li Na.

This result is almost irreversible.

In terms of talent, Li Na is indeed much better than Zheng Jie, but the former had to achieve success late because of her basketball IQ and personality.

"Sister Na, have you ever thought about going solo?"

"Ah? I think everything is fine now, why should I go solo?" Li Na replied without thinking.

Once she went solo, she felt overwhelmed at the thought of the huge team expenses.

After all, she is not popular with sponsors now. Not only is she not as good as Chen Ran, but she is also far inferior to Zheng Jie.

"Oh, okay. It's up to you to decide. I can't give you any advice." Chen Ran said meaningfully.

Half an hour later in the men's final, Chen Ran took only an hour to defeat American player Blake 6-1, 6-2, easily winning the th Masters title of his career.

So far, Chinese tennis players have swept the men's and women's singles titles at the Cincinnati Masters.

……

(End of this chapter)