Chapter 1226 Training System

Gao Wen could see some embarrassment and shyness in Plan's eyes, and a faint smile appeared in his eyes. Then he pretended that he saw nothing and changed the subject.

“I learned some things, but I also realized there’s a lot more to learn.”

“But most importantly, I realized the joy of playing on clay.”

Plan tilted his head slightly, "Oh? What do you mean?"

Gao Wen thought that Pu Lan was just trying to change the subject, so he said a few general things. But when he saw Pu Lan's face showing an interested curiosity and exploration, he couldn't help but wonder, "Are you really interested?"

"Of course, I'm willing to listen to anything that interests you." Plan looked deeply at Gawain, his clear pupils reflecting Gawain's face.

Gawain was slightly stunned, and before he realized it, a smile rose slightly on the corner of his mouth, "Be careful, you might have opened Pandora's box."

This teasing made Plan chuckle, and then Gawain continued.

"In fact, there has always been a saying among professional coaches that basic skills must be trained on clay."

"But obviously the North American training system doesn't agree with this, it's more the European coaches' idea."

"In the past, I always thought that this should be a conflict of views between different training factions, and it objectively exists in the professional training of different competitive sports."

Plan didn't know much about tennis. If it weren't for Gawain, she wouldn't even watch it often, let alone care about the status of tennis matches.

But at this moment, Plan showed an expression of interest, not a flattering expression, but one that came from the heart. Gawain always seemed to be able to make things interesting.

More importantly, Plan wanted to understand Gawain's world, and his curiosity and interest were stronger than ever before.

"So, has your opinion changed now?"

Gao Wen nodded gently, "A little bit at a time."

As Gao Wen said, this is a debate among training factions, which has been slowly emerging since the second half of the first decade of the 21st century and has continued ever since.

The cause was Roddick's retirement. He won the US Open in 2003, which was the last time a North American player won a Grand Slam. It also announced the decline of the golden generation of North America. Even for a long time afterwards, there were no American players in the top ten in the world rankings.

There is no doubt that this is the end of an era. From Connors to McEnroe to Chang, from Courier to Sampras to Agassi, North American hard court players have dominated professional tennis for more than three decades, demonstrating top dominance in all aspects, whether it is Grand Slam championships or the world's number one throne.

Now, it is facing a total collapse.

Instead, European players rose strongly. The "Big Four" all came from Europe, and they led to the joint appearance of the entire European faction. The balance of power in professional tennis also underwent a fundamental change.

Later, in 2017 and 2018, a group of players such as Isner and Querrey saw their world rankings decline due to injuries. The growth rate of the subsequent new generation was far behind that of Zverev, Tsitsipas and others, and the North American professional tennis world fell into a brief hiatus.

At the worst time, there were no American players in the top 30 in the world rankings, and that lasted for a long time.

This was the situation until young players born after 1995 and 2000, such as Taylor Fritz, Reilly Opelka, Tommy Paul, France Tiafoe, Sebastian Korda, Jenson Brooksby, etc., emerged one after another and the situation changed again.

In this regard, professionals from around the world, including North America, have had a heated discussion:

Why?

The strength of the "Big Four" is one aspect, but what about other things? Putting aside the Grand Slam and Masters titles for the moment, what about the world rankings?

Not only in top tournaments, but also in ordinary tournaments, it can be generally felt that American players are lacking in competitiveness and have difficulty keeping up with the average competition level.

Moreover, the most puzzling fact is that due to commercial considerations, the popularity of hard courts has skyrocketed, the number of hard court events has continued to increase, and the living space of red clay and grass courts has been further compressed. Naturally, players who are good at hard courts have also been given more room to play.

Someone once said that Federer is good at grass, Nadal is good at clay, and Djokovic is good at hard court. Of course, these three giants perform very well on all courts, but everyone has their own best court. Therefore, industry insiders are generally optimistic about Djokovic's future.

The most intuitive point is that as hard court events occupy an increasingly larger proportion, Djokovic's number one position in the world will be longer and longer.

After all, the world rankings look at average performance over the past year.

Similar to Djokovic, players who come from the North American training system are good at hard courts. Logically, they should be able to perform well, but this is not the case.

This doesn't seem to make sense.

At this time, the dispute over the training system gradually surfaced.

It may sound strange and hard to understand, but the reality is that the North American training system is called "power flow" and the European training system is called "technical flow" -

Yes, Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Murray, all are called "technical players".

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Of course, judging from their playing styles, Federer and Nadal seem to be far from the technical flow, but an in-depth analysis from a professional perspective will reveal the connection.

There is a reason for this conclusion.

Simply put, the North American training system is not limited to the United States, but also includes Canada, Australia, etc., including most countries and regions in Asia.

This training system revolves around hard courts. Serving and forehand are its strong points, but that is all. Compared with the single weapon, the more serious problem is: the monotony of the tactical system.

Players often rely too much on their serve and forehand, and strength becomes the core of the entire training system. In fact, with the development of physical fitness and equipment technology, as long as the serve and forehand are powerful enough, they can indeed win the game. This further leads to players putting all their trust in their serve and forehand.

But the problem is, what if it doesn't work? What if you can't score with your serve or forehand? At this point, the players who grew up under this training system will fully expose their shortcomings: First, they lack scoring methods.

One is the lack of tactical qualities.

Finally, let’s delve into the fundamental issue: the lack of cultivation of “ball IQ”.

How to say it?

It can be understood in this way. If a person has all kinds of skills in his arsenal, then in a crisis situation, he will constantly think about what weapons he has to get out of the predicament. Naturally, the entire tactical system will become richer and more active.

But if a person only has one weapon in his arsenal, and he can usually defeat the enemy, he will have no other ideas in his mind, and his thinking ability will gradually degenerate. When a real crisis comes, he will not know what to do at all. Even if someone throws a machine gun in front of him, he will not know how to use it.

Players who come out of the North American training system belong to the latter.

(End of this chapter)