Chapter 1249: Harvest at the End
of the Year Indeed, clay is still unfamiliar to Gao Wen; more to the point, the professional arena is still full of freshness to Gao Wen. It is obviously not easy to maintain a stable state and high-frequency output throughout a long season. The test is periodic.
But at the same time, Gao Wen is still learning and growing. All the tests will become nutrients, sculpting Gao Wen into a top player bit by bit. Therefore, whether it is clay or a long schedule, these challenges will become new topics for Gao Wen at different stages, keeping him hungry.
Against Ferrer, Gao was in a desperate situation in the second set and was about to lose the match in straight sets. However, Gao still found a way.
Just like the Australian Open final at the beginning of the year.
Gao Wen once again proved with practical actions that strong nerves and indomitable will are his labels, which are even more important than talent and technology.
Then the match entered the deciding set.
but!
Clay is not hard court, Monte Carlo is not Melbourne, and most importantly, these are two completely different tournaments, everything is different.
In the deciding set, Ferrer once again proved his character as a "stable man". He was not affected by the second set at all and performed diligently.
Standing on the clay, Ferrer was like a fish in water, with relatively limited physical and mental influence, and he quickly gained the upper hand in the third set.
It was still Ferrer who broke the serve first, which meant that for three consecutive games, it was Gawain who lost his serve first and fell into trouble.
Such a small detail is more intuitive than those technical statistics. On clay, Gao Wen's serve is obviously not as stable as on hard court. The reason is comprehensive. It is not a simple deviation in a certain link, but the overall adaptation and adjustment of clay is still ongoing.
For example, the tactical combination of serving, the choice of lines and landing points.
For example, the choice of shots after serving and the layout of offensive tactics.
For example, when facing an opponent's return ball, one needs to make on-the-spot adjustments.
And so on and so forth.
At the same time, another detail also proves this point -
Break success rate.
In the deciding set, although he was broken first, Gao Wen was not without opportunities. He subsequently got five break points and looked for opportunities to turn the situation around in Ferrer's serve.
Unfortunately, however, all five break points were not converted, which directly proved that Gawain was not as good as Ferrer in performing on key points.
Of course, Ferrer has been able to firmly hold the top ten or even top five positions in the world in the era of the Big Four, and has repeatedly delivered top performances in Masters and Grand Slams. He has proved his ability; but it can still be seen from the side that clay is still difficult for Gao Wen.
In the end, Gao Wen got a total of thirteen break points in the whole game, but only converted two, with a break success rate of 15.38%, which was very fatal.
"6:2", "5:7", "6:4".
Ferrer defeated Gao Wen and advanced to the semi-finals, giving Gao Wen his first defeat in the clay court season.
Or in other words, the Spanish stable man gave Gao Wen a good lesson in clay court training.
This defeat means a lot.
Not only did it mean that Gao Wen was eliminated in the quarterfinals of the first clay court tournament in his career, creating his worst result in the Masters; it also meant that Gao Wen's winning streak in the Masters came to an end, eventually ending at 18 consecutive wins. Unfortunately, he was unable to further improve his historical record.
Regretful.
However, this is true for any record. If there is a beginning, there must be an end. Once a benchmark is created, it will inevitably be left for future generations to break. This is always the case.
Records exist to be broken and surpassed.
Perhaps, Gao Wen's winning streak in the Masters has stopped, but he still wrote a series of miracles.
From Paris to Indian Wells to Miami, he won three consecutive Masters titles; and, so far, he has never been eliminated in the first round in five Masters tournaments in his career.
But no one knows when the next player who can create such a feat will appear; in addition, Gawain's record-breaking pace in the Masters will continue.
When the quarterfinals of the 2015 Monte Carlo Masters were all over, the results were more or less disappointing.
After Gawain and Dimitrov were eliminated one after another, Raonic retired due to injury in the match against Nadal when he was trailing 2:5 in the first set.
The injury is still the quadriceps.
Since the second half of last year, Raonic has been suffering from a strained right thigh muscle and was even forced to withdraw from the year-end finals. After examination, it was not too serious, so Raonic adopted conservative treatment, but there have been some recurrences in the past few months.
Moreover, in Monte Carlo, when facing Nadal, Raonic could not even finish the first set. The same injury became more and more serious, and it was no longer possible for him to finish the game.
The situation is not good.
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This also means that the "youth storm" has come to a complete halt in Monte Carlo, and the younger generation's power has been reduced when they come to the clay court.
In fact, this is not surprising.
As mentioned before, the current young generation of players basically all grew up on hard courts, and their overall playing style is still suitable for hard courts. After coming to the clay courts, they are obviously not acclimatized. It will not change until the "post-95" generation of young European players grow up.
Although Zverev, Medvedev, Berrettini, Hurkacz and others are typical hard court players, they also have good performances on clay; and, in addition to them, players such as Tsitsipas and Ruud perform better on clay than on hard courts, showing their potential as clay court experts.
So far, the three protagonists of the Youth Storm have all stopped in the Monte Carlo quarterfinals and have not been able to advance further. In addition, challengers such as Wawrinka, Thiem, Pouille, etc. who have been eliminated before are gradually emerging. In the end, the Monte Carlo semifinals are all familiar faces:
In the upper half, “Djokovic VS Nadal”.
In the lower half, “Ferrel VS Monfils”.
Four of them, all born in the 1980s——
Ferrer was born in 1982, Nadal and Monfils were born in 1986, and Djokovic was born in 1987. They are also the mainstays of today's professional tennis and are in their prime.
After experiencing the stormy first quarter of 2015 when the new generation took over the power, the Mesozoic generation roared collectively at the first clay court Masters tournament in the clay court season, strongly declaring their presence. It was not only a battle of "Big Four vs. Challengers", but also "Mesozoic generation vs. New Generation" was also going on.
Especially considering the existence of Monte Carlo as a weather vane of the French Open, does the semi-final lineup mean that the Mesozoic will launch a full-scale counterattack in the second quarter?
But is it really so? Is the youth storm really disappointing? Has the challenger craze really hit a wall?
Apparently, people have not forgotten the most important thing in Monte Carlo this week.
The world ranking has undergone a drastic change. Something that has been anticipated and hotly discussed has already happened, even without waiting until the clay court season progresses further.
(End of this chapter)