Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 677: First comeback from - down to - down in career

The 2009 Australian Open was full of excitement.

On the women's side, Serena Williams defeated Safina to win the championship, while Olympic gold medalist Li Na from China also made it into the semi-finals, equaling her best result in a Grand Slam tournament.

This is her second time reaching the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament.

As for the men, it was a complete melee.

There is no way, there are simply too many experts.

What surprised Chinese fans was that Li Zhe, who made a name for himself at the Shenzhen Masters last year, won three qualifying matches in a row and entered the main draw of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career. He even won a main draw, becoming the second Chinese male tennis player after Chen Ran to win a main draw at a Grand Slam tournament.

In addition, compared with those who directly participate in the Grand Slam main draw, players who participate in and pass the qualifying rounds can get more points.

Li Zhe also successfully broke into the top 100 in the world rankings thanks to his performance in the round of at last year's Shenzhen Masters and the second round of this year's Australian Open.

Since then, China finally has its second male TOP100 player.

The tennis effect that Chen Ran brought to China finally began to affect men's tennis in the winter of 2009.

He was finally no longer fighting alone.

In fact, Chen Ran and Li Zhe did not meet privately very often, only a few times with Miu Miu.

For him, it was just a piece of cake to get IMG to sign Li Zhe and provide him with some training resources.

Of course, this also made the latter very grateful.

However, during this Australian Open, Chen Ran still conveyed his thoughts through the media.

"Congratulations to him for entering the TOP100. If he can maintain this ranking, he will have a high chance of entering the main draw of a Grand Slam or some 250 tournaments directly."

"I took a rough look at his points composition. He is not under much pressure to maintain points in the first half of the year, so he can still push up in the rankings."

"As for the next competition plan, I believe the agency will make a reasonable plan, and I can't give any suggestions."

Generally speaking, for players ranked between 80 and 100 in the ATP rankings, their competition strategy is usually a combination of high-level challenge tournaments and 250 tour tournaments.

Challenge tournaments like the 100K and 125K are very rewarding in terms of points and prize money, and are very popular among many tour-level players who are ranked lower, and they can also become high-ranking seeded players.

Professional tennis is very difficult, and the fiercely competitive tour forces many players at this level to sign up for challenge tournaments in order to maintain their points, and Li Zhe is no exception.

Although Chen Ran is the seventh seed, he is still recognized as the world's number one player. This time he had a smooth journey and reached the quarterfinals.

Originally, he was facing No. 4 seed Nadal in the quarter-finals for a spot in the semi-finals.

But this time, the Spaniard obviously broke his promise. He lost unexpectedly to a 8-year-old rising star from Argentina, Juan Martin del Potro, in the quarter-finals.

Chen Ran knew this person. This guy was going to fight Federer for five sets in the US Open final this year, defeat his opponent and win the final championship.

It's just that due to injuries, Del Potro's performance was severely restricted.

Otherwise, with this person's talent and strength, he will definitely win more than one Grand Slam championship.

Chen Ran didn't expect that this talented guy would become an obstacle for him to enter the top four.

Del Potro is no easier to deal with than Nadal, especially since his body has not yet returned to its best condition.

The course of this game was thrilling and exciting.

At the beginning, Del Potro was in high spirits and continued his excellent form of eliminating Nadal, and he actually kept suppressing Chen Ran.

Del Potro is 1 meters tall and has an extremely violent forehand.

It was Chen Ran’s first time confronting his opponent and he was not used to it at all, so he was always in a passive position.

5 to 7, 5 to 7!

Chen Ran unexpectedly lost two sets in a row, shocking the 1 fans at Rod Laver Arena.

Will this young Argentine eliminate Nadal and Chen Ran consecutively and make history?
Will the young Pampas heroes soar to new heights at Rod Laver Arena?

"When was the last time Chen Ran was two sets behind in a Grand Slam tournament?"

"Wait, he's never been down by two sets in a Grand Slam!"

"Not falling behind by two sets means he has never been swept 3-0."

"Yes, even though Chen Ran is not in the best condition now, this situation is still something no one expected."

"Let's see what happens in this game?"

At this moment, the Chinese Internet was already in an uproar. Many haters who liked to stir up trouble took the opportunity to stir up trouble.

"He shouldn't have played in the Olympics with an injury. Now he missed the US Open, lost at the end of the year, and now he's going to be eliminated in the Australian Open."

"Yeah, yeah, that Olympics was really traumatic."

"What do you know? He is the defending champion of the Olympic Games, and the event is held in his home country. Even if he retires now, he is unprecedented and will never be surpassed."

"Hehe, if Chen Ran keeps playing like this, he might as well just retire and leave everyone with a perfect impression, just like Sampras did back then."

"There's no going back, nothing can go back!"

Some even joked: "It would be perfect if Chen Ran announced his retirement after winning the Beijing Olympics."

Sampras retired at the peak of his powers after winning the 2002 US Open.

Besides the fact that he felt that he had nothing more to aspire to, it was also important that he did not expect his later career to become miserable and no longer glorious.

In fact, every superstar hopes that his career will have a brilliant ending, just like Jordan retired perfectly after completing three consecutive championships in 1998.

Netizens began to give up, but Chen Ran did not give up.

Starting from the third game, Chen Ran began to improve his attack speed and his grasping ability continued to increase.

Del Potro's footwork is excellent, and his flexibility doesn't look like that of a 1-meter tall guy at all.

Chen Ran constantly used excellent landing point control to mobilize the opponent to run continuously, in order to achieve the purpose of consuming the opponent's physical energy.

After all, this guy just fought a five-set battle with Nadal, so he must have some physical problems.

What's more, due to the huge difference in their body shapes, Del Potro's energy consumption will definitely be much greater than Chen Ran's for the same running distance.

Don’t forget that Chen Ran’s physical fitness in his peak period was almost close to that of Nadal in the same peak period.

The two of them can fight to the death on the clay court.

At this moment, even though Chen Ran's physical fitness is not at its peak, he is definitely better than Del Potro.

Then, relying on his excellent and comprehensive skills, Chen Ran always consciously suppressed the opponent's backhand.

Del Potro's invincible and violent forehand is indeed very scary, but don't forget that Chen Ran has the world's best two-handed backhand technique.

In the third set, Chen Ran focused on Del Potro's backhand and put crazy pressure on him.

The situation changed suddenly.

In this set, Chen Ran completed two breaks and won the third set 6-1.

In the fourth set, Chen Ran began to change his tactics again.

He deliberately and consciously delayed the game time, so he adopted a "grinding and teaching" style of play.

Various high-quality cutting balls emerged one after another, and demonstrated what a solid defense is.

Whether it was his serve or Del Potro's serve, he tried to prolong the multi-shot confrontation as much as possible and make his opponent run as much as possible.

This set was played very fiercely, with both sides saving 6 serve games each and fighting till a tie-break.

Then, the turning point of the game came.

During the tie-break, Del Potro suffered cramps from exhaustion.

Chen Ran once again demonstrated his strength as the "King of Game 7" and won the game 1-.

Del Potro was unwilling to accept such a defeat, but because of cramps, he could only grit his teeth.

This guy is still very stubborn and refuses to withdraw from the competition.

In the fifth set, Del Potro had cramps for the second time. He gritted his teeth in pain, with tears in his eyes.

But even so, Chen Ran will not show any mercy.

He won the game 6-1 with a quick move and gave his opponent a fried dough stick in the deciding set.

For the first time in his career, Chen Ran staged the famous scene of “coming back from 2-3 down to - down” in a Grand Slam tournament.

……

(End of this chapter)