Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 704: The Stubborn and Unyielding Girl
PS: This chapter pays tribute to our Olympic women's singles champion.

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At present, due to the sudden emergence of Chen Ran, Chinese tennis has experienced nearly 20 years of rapid development.

This was eight years earlier than when Li Na won the 2011 French Open.

What's more, the significance of the men's Grand Slam championship is extraordinary. It proves that Chinese male tennis players can also become world-class players. The impact is far-reaching.

However, Chen Ran also knows that tennis is not a large team sport like football or basketball. Even though the latter two have terrible performances now, they can at least maintain high popularity because they have local professional leagues and clubs to back them up.

Tennis is essentially the same as table tennis or badminton. If it wants to maintain its popularity in China, it must continuously produce domestic stars.

Without the support of local stars, the heat will dissipate.

Of course, the difference is that the Chinese people's requirements for badminton or table tennis are world championships and Olympic gold medals, while the requirements for tennis are a little looser, such as maintaining the top ten in the world.

So far, there are only four Chinese tennis players who have entered the top ten in the world: Chen Ran, Li Na, Zheng Jie, and Wang Qiang, one man and three women. The latter two were affected by Chen Ran's butterfly effect.

Chen Ran is well aware of the importance of local stars, so he started planning very early, hoping to cultivate more future talents for Chinese tennis.

Nowadays, the younger generation of players enjoy sufficient resources.

With the support of national policies and the real financial investment from sponsors brought by Chen Ran, this generation of players can enjoy much better conditions than the previous generation.

But even so, it is still very difficult to stand out in professional tennis, a sport with such fierce competition.

After all, young people all over the world, both boys and girls, are taking this sport to new heights.

Wealthy families can take the route of self-cultivation, and those from ordinary families can also take the route of training within the system.

In addition, some countries will wave checks to poach young talents from other countries.

For example, Russia, once a tennis powerhouse with a surplus of talent, is no longer as economically powerful as it once was. Many young people who play tennis in Russia do not come from well-off families, and the Russian Tennis Association has limited resources.

Rybakina, a new generation of Russian talented beauty, had to transfer her citizenship to Kazakhstan because her family could not afford the cost of her training and the Russian Tennis Association did not have enough resources to support her.

In recent years, many young Russian male and female players have changed their nationality to Kazakhstan, and some have even changed their nationality to Armenia.

This shows the severity of Russia's talent drain.

As for China, although its economic strength is relatively outstanding, practitioners in the tennis industry are still proud and are unwilling to naturalize foreign players like the football department next door.

However, due to the serious outflow of Russian players, players who originally lacked resources have been more fully trained in other countries, which has indirectly intensified the level of competition in the tennis world.

In terms of overall strength, Kazakhstan's current tennis strength has even surpassed China.

“It’s not just Russia, almost all Eastern European countries are into tennis, both men and women.”

"Relatively speaking, the overall competitiveness of North American and Western European countries, where life is better, is declining. However, because these regions have a long and excellent training system, as long as there are top-level talented players, they will always receive key training."

"It's too curly anyway."

This is the competitive reality of the new generation of tennis. The proportion of Eastern European players is increasing, especially among women.

Therefore, the competitive pressure faced by these Chinese players is unprecedentedly huge, with high expectations from domestic fans and fierce international competition. Chen Ran retracted these thoughts and looked at the little girl named Zheng Qinwen with appreciation.

As far as he could remember, when he traveled through time, this girl was merely known as a rising star in Chinese tennis. He didn't know that she later reached the Australian Open finals and won the Olympic women's singles gold medal.

"First of all, we all know that the Paris Olympics will be held on the clay court of Roland Garros, so who do you think is most likely to win the championship?" Chen Ran asked, "I want to hear your true thoughts, speak freely."

One of the girls said, "It's hard to predict for men, after all, you and Nadal are both old. But for women, it shouldn't be that difficult."

"Swiatek from Poland won the French Open at the age of 19 and is known as the new generation of the clay court queen."

"At least she is so dominant on clay that she is definitely the favorite."

"If we can get a bronze or silver medal for the country, it will be great."

Many little flowers nodded in agreement.

"That's not necessarily true. I've played against her on clay courts, and I don't think she's unbeatable!" Zheng Qinwen stood up and said firmly, "There are still three years left, and I will continue to improve. After three years, I believe I will be able to challenge her!"

In the past few years, sponsored by Chen Ran's "Tennis Charity Fund", Zheng Qinwen also went to Europe to study tennis for a period of time and played against those young clay court masters.

It was also during this period that her clay court skills improved by leaps and bounds.

Many little flowers remained silent, but their expressions clearly showed their disagreement.

On clay courts, they also played against Zheng Qinwen and Swiatek.

Many young players were defeated 6-0 by Swiatek, but they did not feel this kind of powerless and deep despair when they played against Zheng Qinwen.

Zheng Qinwen does have strength on clay court, but she just lost more beautifully than them. However, this girl is very stubborn and refuses to admit defeat.

Those little flowers also experienced it and realized how powerful and terrifying their opponents are.

So they don't think Zheng Qinwen can challenge Swiatek at Roland Garros three years later.

At this time, Chen Ran spoke.

"In fact, I think whether you have the ability to do this is not the key. The key is whether you dare to think and dare to bring down a powerful opponent."

Chen Ran's eyes slowly passed over the small grasses and flowers one by one. "Really, in the sport of tennis, there has never been a saying that the younger generation should respect the older generation. Someone once called tennis boxing across the net. Your only goal on the court is to defeat your opponent."

“No matter who your opponent is or how accomplished he is, you should always think that you can beat him.”

"You can't lose confidence and be afraid to challenge your opponent just because your opponent gave you two 6-0s."

"Don't even think about losing two 6-0s once. Even if you lose two 6-0s ten times, you can't be discouraged."

"So I agree with Qin Wen's idea. No matter how strong my opponent is, I will never bow down to you. In the world of tennis, there is no such thing as being honorable in defeat!"

At this moment, the girl, who was only 18 years old, had a gleam in her eyes after hearing Chen Ran's words.

……

(End of this chapter)