Return to 2002: Freestyle Superstar

Chapter 724 Undercurrents before the Olympics

This may be the first time in nearly 20 years that Chen Ran, the "King of Grass", has missed the Wimbledon Championships.

What people are curious about is, who will be the ultimate beneficiary?
Is it Djokovic, Aka, Sinner, or those players born in the 90s who have yet to achieve any success.

A month later, the answer was revealed on Centre Court at the All England Club.

The young Alcaraz defeated May in the quarter-finals, Sinner in the semi-finals, and Djokovic 4-1 in the final to win the Grand Slam title for the first time in his career.

The British royal family finally no longer had to look gloomy when presenting awards, but instead smiled happily.

Of course, it would be best if a British player could win the title.

But Murray, the only one who had a chance to win the Wimbledon title, lost to Chen Ran too many times. Under the suppression of his opponent, he had no chance to make a breakthrough and even retired earlier than Chen Ran.

It’s 2024, and finally a player who is not one of the “Big Four” has won a Grand Slam title, and the inheritance of men’s professional tennis has jumped directly from the post-90s to the post-00s.

This also means that tennis has finally ushered in a new era.

“I didn’t expect A-Ka to actually seize this opportunity.”

Although Chen Ran is in China, he is also following the developments of Wimbledon thousands of miles away.

If it weren't for his relationship, Aka would have even defeated Djokovic last year and become the new king.

Because of Chen Ran, this time and space has been delayed by one year.

As a Spaniard, Akar is more competitive than his predecessor Nadal on grass courts.

However, his dominance on clay courts is not as strong as Nadal's.

Since the end of the French Open, although Chen Ran returned to China, he has been training on clay courts.

After giving up the grass season, he no longer needs to adapt to the torturous process of "clay-grass-clay" again.

The difference is that in previous seasons, he only maintained his clay court style until early June every year, but this time he will continue his clay court style until August.

In fact, in the past decade or so, the time interval between the French Open and Wimbledon was too close.

When he participated in the French Open, he was actually reserved, which means that he would not fight hard unless it was absolutely necessary.

Because he must first defend his own backyard Wimbledon, which also led to Nadal's number of French Open wins being close to Chen Ran's.

But after Nadal recovered from his injury, Chen Ran won two consecutive French Open titles, once again widening the gap in French Open titles between the two to three.

Nadal felt bitter but couldn't say it out loud.

I've been taking drugs to the extreme and my hair is almost falling out. Is this guy a devil?

Today, Chen Ran is far ahead in the number of Grand Slam titles, and is surrounded by honors in all aspects.

At this moment, Chen Ran was competing with himself.

He needs to give himself the most perfect farewell.

Chen Ran hopes that his "Last Dance" will be comparable to Michael Jordan's.

……

At this moment, the entire Chinese media has been mobilized, and almost all attention is focused on the upcoming Paris Olympics.

This is the first Olympic Games after the epidemic, and the people are very enthusiastic.

The Olympic Games have attracted a lot of attention, and Weibo is also helping to guide the flow. Recently, there have been a lot fewer hot searches on Weibo about the entertainment industry.

Even if some artists spent money to buy trending searches, their position on the trending searches was immediately replaced by Olympic news not long after they appeared on the list.

This surprised Chen Ran a little.

Although offline, people's daily discussions are still mainly about food, clothing, housing and transportation, but on major social media and portal websites, news about the Paris Olympics is overwhelming.

This level of popularity is much higher than that of the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.

Especially Liang Zi and his table tennis team. Before the Paris Olympics even started, the hot searches for them have already dominated the charts on all major platforms.

Those "Shatou fans" on the Internet are even more arrogant and reckless, even worse than during the Tokyo Olympics.

In their eyes, the Olympic singles gold medal seemed to be in the pocket of their older brothers and sisters.

In order to attract traffic, several second- and third-tier celebrities in the entertainment industry deliberately made fun of the table tennis team. They were then subjected to overwhelming online violence by "Shatou fans", forcing them to come out and record a video to apologize.

In terms of traffic, there is currently only Chen Ran on the tennis side who can compete with the table tennis team. Of course, Chen Ran relies on national traffic, while the table tennis team relies on fan circle traffic.

People like Zheng Qinwen currently have far less traffic and attention than this table tennis team with a huge fan base.

In the past six months, that is, after the end of the Australian Open, Zheng Qinwen's performance has been unsatisfactory. He was eliminated early in the French Open and Wimbledon.

Many tennis fans in China have mocked him as the "worst Grand Slam runner-up."

Although tennis is quite popular in China and has many fans, it can basically be listed as one of the four most popular ball sports in China along with football, basketball and table tennis. Although badminton is played by many people, the attention paid to the competition and the popularity of the players are too low, which cannot be compared with table tennis at all.

Shi Yuqi, who is also the world's No. 1 men's singles badminton player, is almost as well-known as an invisible person in China. Even Wei Shihao of the Chinese national football team can beat him.

The reason is that Chen Ran feels that with the crazy marketing of table tennis, it is difficult for it to eat up the market attention and commercial value of football, tennis and basketball. However, badminton has become a victim of table tennis's marketing. The attention that originally belonged to the furry ball has been sucked away by the fat ball.

The only way to break the deadlock is to win the Olympic singles title and fight your way out.

As for Zheng Qinwen in tennis, Chen Ran is actually a little pessimistic.

Her current national popularity is still far behind that of Wang Qiang before her, and tennis is not suitable for large-scale fan circle marketing. If her form continues to be sluggish in this Olympics, and the two table tennis players win the championship, the gap in traffic and exposure will only be greater.

"Liang Zi is indeed a marketing expert." Chen Ran couldn't help but touch his forehead, "Table tennis is the national sport after all."

No matter how much marketing the popular stars in the entertainment industry do, their influence can only be limited to certain fan circles.

But table tennis is different. It has the confidence of being the national sport. Once it is marketed, it is popular among all age groups, regardless of gender or age.

Even the auntie who lives next door to Chen Ran’s house kept talking about “Sasha”, “Big Head”, and “I like this couple so much”.

Hearing this, his face turned black.

Chen Ran himself has invested in the media and knows the tendencies of these media reports.

In the era of self-media, traffic is king.

At this Paris Olympics, the competition takes place not only on the field, but also outside the field where no swords are gleaming or fighting is seen.

Major capitals have poured in to compete here.

……

(End of this chapter)