Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 652: Revenge of the French Open and Wimbledon (4K)

PS: I have only briefly mentioned the preparations for the French Open and Wimbledon, and mainly focused on the Yanjing Olympics.

The Chinese national football team lost 0-7, which was expected, completely expected, but defending the bus and still losing 0-7 was a bit surprising!

……

The Chinese sports world has been very lively these days, not only because the number one Chinese sportsman Chen Ran officially announced his comeback, but also the number two Liu Xiang has started warm-up matches, and Yao Ming, who has completed the surgery, has also started to get out of bed and walk around.

CCTV’s official media even released a photo with the title: The leaders of China’s three small balls.

In the photo, Chen Ran, Lin Dan, and Wang Liqin put their hands together to cheer each other on, uniting as one for the upcoming Yanjing Olympics.

Whether the Chinese delegation can win the men's singles gold medals in all three small-ball events for the first time in history depends on these three people!
After all, the men's team cannot be relied upon in the three major ball sports, so we should be thankful if they don't suffer a shameful defeat.

In the Athens Olympics, in the men's singles event of three small balls, only Chen Ran won the championship. How could you dare to imagine this?
The powerful badminton and table tennis sports lost the men's singles gold medals one after another, while the men's tennis, which has always been weak, won the men's singles gold medal because of the sudden emergence of the Purple Star Chen Ran.

If it was before 2003, people would definitely think that this possibility was about the same as the Chinese national football team winning the World Cup.

Now it seems that the weak men's tennis seems to be the most stable, while the strong men's table tennis and badminton seem to be a little uncertain.

The 2008 Yanjing Olympic Games is quietly approaching.

……

Has there ever been a precedent like Chen Ran in the history of professional tennis?

In the first seven months of the year, as a top professional tennis player, he only participated in three Grand Slam tournaments and did not even participate in any other tours.

Obviously, Chen Ran is the first one in history.

But in Chen Ran's words: I have achieved an unprecedented Super Annual Grand Slam, which is much more difficult than the Annual Gold Slam, so my physical strength and energy have been exhausted and I need to take a break.

For a whole year, he paid too much for this honor and almost overdrawn his body to the limit.

Of course, in the tennis circle, it is generally believed that winning the year-end finals championship is more difficult than winning the Olympic gold medal. If you want to win the championship, you have to defeat at least four TOP4 players.

Chen Ran not only achieved the achievement of 14 Grand Slam titles, but also won three consecutive year-end finals titles!
This year, Chen Ran officially took time out to attend the annual Laureus Awards ceremony, and unsurprisingly won the Best Male Athlete of the Year award.

In fact, based on his performance in the past few years, he is fully capable of maintaining the title of Laureus Athlete of the Year.

After all, Federer in his previous life performed worse than Chen Ran at the same time, but he also won the award.

However, Chen Ran had not been able to attend the event in person in the past two years due to his busy schedule, which led the petty organizers to give the award to athletes from other events, such as F1, golf, and football.

But apart from football, the other two sports have basically no attention in China and are a niche within a niche.

This year, Chen Ran became the first person in tennis history to be present at the event.

The Lawrence organizing committee could no longer find fault and had no choice but to give the award for Best Male Athlete of the Year to Chen Ran.

In fact, from Chen Ran’s perspective, he doesn’t care about this award at all.

Whether or not I have this award will not affect my status at all.

Sports competitions are decided through competitive contests, and champions are never determined by judges’ scoring like movie or television reviews.

Even if I didn’t win the Laureus Best Male Athlete Award, does that mean I’m not the best in the sports world?

"It is not my honor to receive this award, but Lawrence's honor. It shows that you are fair!" Chen Ran thought so righteously in his heart.

After receiving the award, he went directly to Paris, France.

……

"My plan is to compete in the French Open first, then Wimbledon, and then the Olympics." After arriving in Paris, Chen Ran faced a crowd of foreign reporters and spoke freely, "This is my current plan. As for after the Olympics, I have not made any plans yet."

"How is your physical condition? Have you recovered from your injury?" a reporter continued to ask.

"My body has almost recovered, so I chose to attend the French Open?" Chen Ran continued leisurely, "Warming up? The whole world knows that I am a top clay court player, so it doesn't matter if I don't warm up."

In fact, Chen Ran really thought about only participating in the four Grand Slams + the Olympics, plus the year-end finals in 2008.

No, we still have to participate in the China season tour, at least we have to make sure we attend two stops.

In this way, it becomes the four Grand Slams + Olympics + year-end finals, plus two tour stops in the Chinese season.

That should be enough, right?
After working so hard for so many seasons and maintaining the world's number one position for so long, it's not too much to relax a bit in this special year of 2008, right?
Chen Ran was actually very clear about one thing. After more than four months of truce, not only had his body fully recovered, his physical reserves had also reached the limit. More importantly, after not touching a tennis racket for a long time, the hunger for glory in his body began to burn again.

As for whether the feel will become unfamiliar?
If it is other players who have not played games for a long time, it will take some time for them to adapt to their condition.

But Chen Ran has the existence of a "simulated training ground", so this problem never exists.

He can adjust his competitive state to the best anytime and anywhere.

Although Chen Ran is still ranked first in the world, the bookmakers are not optimistic about him and have ranked his odds fourth, after Nadal, Federer and Djokovic.

After all, he had not been on the battlefield for a long time.

However, Chen Ran's performance began to slap the gambling companies in the face.

The world's number one player seemed to be unaffected by his long absence from the battlefield. He showed excellent competitive form, crushing all the other players and making rapid progress.

Due to the draw, Chen Ran and Nadal were placed in the same half.

The two met in the semifinals as expected, while Djokovic and Federer met in the other half of the draw.

The Big Four once again met in the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament.

Originally everyone thought that Federer would fall behind because he was infected with mononuclear syndrome during last year's year-end finals, which led to his poor performance in the Australian Open.

But after several months of recuperation and constant efforts to find his form through competitions, Federer's form has returned.

At the French Open, he once again reached the Grand Slam semi-finals.

In the first semi-final, the "Federer-Dordrecht battle" took place.

Djokovic completed the first comeback against Federer from 2-0 down in Grand Slam history.

After falling behind by two sets, he completed a stunning comeback and won three sets in a row.

The Swiss king was also confused.

He always believed that there was someone else besides Chen Ran who could accomplish the same feat of “coming from 2-3 down to -” for him.

After all, it is difficult for Nadal to do this either.

This Serbian guy who started to rise last year is so terrifying.

Of course, although Federer's competitive form has almost recovered, his physical condition is still worse than his peak period because he was infected with "mononuclear syndrome".

But at his peak, he was firmly suppressed by Chen Ran, who was also at his peak.

This was a very painful thing for him. If this continued, Fei Lao Er would soon become Fei Lao Si.

Without results, it is useless no matter how elegantly you play.

In the other semifinal, the match between Chen Ran and Nadal was a replica of last year's classic battle.

The two strongest clay court powers in tennis history once again staged a peak showdown.

If you zoom in on the game to every set, every round, every point, you will find that the battle between the two players is very intense, and it seems almost difficult to tell the winner.

But those who observe carefully will find that in this game, Chen Ran's error rate is terribly low, especially the number of very forced errors, which is far less than Nadal.

In other words, on the surface, the strength of these two "Kings of Clay" is similar.

But Chen Ran's probability of making mistakes is lower than Nadal's.

This slight gap was not obvious in the serving games of both sides.

After all, if you want to break your opponent's serve, you must win at least two points more than him.

However, in the tie-break, every "mini break" is precious.

Chen Ran actually swept Nadal 3-0 with a near-perfect performance in the three-set tie-break.

First set, 7-6 (11-9);
The second set, 7-6 (12-10);
The third set, 7-6 (10-8).

There were three sets of matches, three tie-breaks, and in each tie-break, Chen Ran only won two points over Nadal.

After the game, Nadal sat in a chair, covered his face, and cried very sadly.

He felt that he had reached his limit, even the limit of the limit, and could not improve any further.

After all, in tennis, even the best players make mistakes.

Chen Ran also made mistakes, but his mistakes were fewer than mine.

So little that Nadal felt he couldn't find any chance.

The score seemed close, but he had to accept the situation where Chen Ran swept him 3-0.

He reached the French Open finals for three consecutive years, but was blocked from the finals by Chen Ran in the fourth year, failing to achieve the achievement of reaching the French Open finals four times in a row.

As for Chen Ran, since 2003, he has reached the French Open finals five times and won four of them. He is the real "King of Clay".

Of course, the outside world is accustomed to calling Chen Ran the king of the entire venue.

In the French Open final, Chen Ran completed a beautiful revenge.

Although Djokovic's strength on clay courts has improved greatly, he is different from players like Chen Ran who have been "immersed in clay for many years."

Chen Ran's familiarity with clay courts is no less than Nadal's, and he has almost become one with it.

More importantly, Chen Ran's error rate is lower than Nadal's.

As a result, the final became a one-sided situation.

6比3，7比5，6比3！

Djokovic only resisted a little in the second set. After being broken by Chen Ran in the third set, he almost gave up the idea of ​​​​fighting and surrendered obediently.

In the first and second sets, Chen Ran controlled the entire game.

3-0, Chen Ran directly swept Djokovic and completed his revenge at the Australian Open.

At the same time, he also won the 15th Grand Slam title in his career.

In terms of the number of Grand Slams, Chen Ran officially surpassed Sampras, and this is just the beginning.

……

A month later, Chen Ran went to Wimbledon again.

His advantage on grass courts is more obvious than on clay courts.

After all, in professional tennis, grass court masters are extremely rare, as the grass conditions are harsh and many players spend very little time training on the grass each year.

In the current Wimbledon, Chen Ran’s only real opponent is Federer.

As the future king of grass court, Djokovic has not yet adapted to the rhythm of grass court games, and he still focuses mainly on hard courts.

Therefore, in this year's Wimbledon Championship, Chen Ran swept all the top players with overwhelming force.

In every round, he almost swept his opponent 3-0, and his opponent didn't even get a break point.

In the semi-finals, Chen Ran faced Djokovic and scored such a brutal score of 6-1, 6-2, 6-1.

In the final, Chen Ran lost the first set of this Wimbledon to Federer, who was also proficient on grass. However, he still defeated his opponent with a very obvious advantage of 3 to 1 and completed his three consecutive Wimbledon titles.

"Why is it you, a Chinese boy, again!"

The person who suffered the most at the awards ceremony was the Queen of England.

She couldn't present the award to Federer, whom she loved, and had to present the award to the guy she hated with a gloomy face.

It's a shame, it's a shame to the British royal family.

And for British tabloid reporters, the sullen expression on the Queen's face when she presents awards every year is a huge selling point for them.

That's why they could exaggerate and create more news after Chen Ran won the championship.

At this moment, after winning Wimbledon, Chen Ran's personal number of Grand Slam titles has reached an unprecedented 16.

What is even more astonishing is that this guy only participated in three tennis tournaments this year, namely the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon, and ended up winning 2 championships and 1 runner-up, while spending the rest of the time on vacation.

This is something that not only other professional tennis players, but also other superstars such as football and basketball are envious of.

For football and basketball superstars, the bigger the star, the more competitions they participate in, the greater the strain on their bodies, and sometimes they have to compete with injuries. But you, a tennis superstar, are different. You specifically choose Grand Slam tournaments to participate in, and you always win the championship.

After a year's income, it's actually pretty much the same.

Comparing people to each other is so irritating.

At this moment, ATP was also a little troubled by Chen Ran's behavior.

After all, the Grand Slam tournaments are not under their jurisdiction, and Chen Ran's absence from the tour has left their events without their biggest star.

This group of gentlemen had to get together for a meeting to discuss how to solve this problem.

……

(End of this chapter)