Chapter 1291: Clay Journey
Roberto-Bautista-Agut, born in 1988, is a Spanish player and currently ranked 16th in the world.
When people mention Spanish players, "clay court experts" are often the first thing that comes to mind, from Moya to Ferrero to Nadal. Moreover, in addition to these top players, there are also many clay court experts in the Spanish team, and the home court of the Davis Cup is also clay court.
However, among the group of clay court masters, there are also some outliers, such as Lopez who is good at grass and Busta who is good at hard court.
Agut is also a special case——
He is good at hard ground.
As of 2022, Auger-Aliassime has won a total of eleven singles championship trophies in his career, eight from hard courts, two from clay, and one from grass.
In addition, Auger-Aliassime has reached ten finals in his career and unfortunately finished second, eight on hard courts, one on grass, and only once on clay.
At a glance.
It is obvious that Auger is a hard court master. He has solid basic skills in baseline hitting and strong resistance to blows on both forehand and backhand. Although he is not good at exerting force, his ability to use the force of the opponent to change the line is definitely among the top ten in the world, and he is good at both offense and defense.
In Auger-Aliassime's career, he has defeated many of the top ten players in the world, including Murray, Wawrinka, Berdych, Tsitsipas, Medvedev, Thiem, etc., but his most brilliant and shining feat is his three consecutive victories over the world's number one Djokovic on the hard court.
Shanghai in 2016, Doha in 2019, Miami in 2019.
All three times, all on hard courts, two of which were at the Masters; moreover, Djokovic was the world number one and in great form, but Auger-Aliassime still proved his baseline hitting ability.
Perhaps, Agut has never been the brightest star in the tour, and his best results in Grand Slam tournaments are once in the Wimbledon semi-finals and once in the Australian Open quarter-finals; but he is definitely a strong opponent that any player needs to be wary of, and the fact that he has repeatedly advanced to the fourth round of Grand Slam tournaments is the best proof of this.
In terms of technical characteristics, Auger-Aliassime is good at flat shots and is indeed more suitable for hard courts. When it comes to clay, the power of his baseline shots will be weakened. During Djokovic's three consecutive losses to Auger-Aliassime on hard courts, he actually defeated Auger-Aliassime twice on clay, which explains the problem.
However, if you think that Auger-Aliassime will be easy to bully on the clay court, you are absolutely wrong.
In the quarterfinals, Gawain will face Auger-Aliassime, which will be a severe test.
This game is indeed full of challenges——
The biggest feature of Auger-Aliassime's batting is its solidity.
Analyzing from the data of strength, speed and so on, it seems that there is no special feature in Agut's shot. It is not powerful, not fast and very steady. But when you really stand on the court, you can feel that Agut's basic skills are solid and his power is complete, so the combined force of the whole shot is very good.
The return ball doesn't look fast or heavy, but there is a strong sense of squeezing at the end.
Although he lacks some impact and explosiveness, and is not like Wawrinka and Del Potro who can break the game with one shot, Agut focuses on stability: he can continuously output firepower, and his excellent movement, accurate prediction and delicate technique ensure that he can maintain the quality of his shots in the confrontation of the round balls, knocking back all attacks one after another and returning all the attacks with force.
Moreover, Auger's shots seem to have no special features on the surface, lacking in changes and skills, but in fact, this is definitely not the case.
First, top.
In fact, it can also be said to be "squeezing" or "impact".
From a certain perspective, Auger-Aliassime's baseline shots are somewhat similar to those of the later world No. 1 female player Halep. Both of them continuously hit the ball back, suppressing the opponent's swing space through force and deep pressure of the landing point, and then accumulating this squeezing layer by layer.
As a result, the opponent will feel a "pushing" sensation, with the tennis ball pressing against the racket, so that his elbow is pressing against the stomach and he cannot stretch out.
Once, twice, three times... Over time, the quality of the return ball will continue to decline, which is also an important reason why Auger was able to defeat Djokovic three consecutive times on the hard court.
Second, leverage.
Agut himself is not a strong explosive player and often encounters power suppression, but he is good at using the opponent's force to his advantage.
By leveraging the force, he can compress the rhythm of his own hitting, almost like hitting a rebound ball, with one quick shot and one quick tear, completing the hit in an instant.
Moreover, when taking advantage of the force, he can change the angle or change the line. This ability to overcome hardness with softness is a killer feature.
It is also because of this that Agut is more suitable for hard courts. He needs to make full use of speed and rhythm, but when he comes to clay, the speed is slowed down and the rotation effect is amplified. It is difficult for him to control the trajectory of the return ball with leverage, and it is also difficult to increase the rhythm and speed of the return ball.
However, the basic skills are there. Maybe the upper limit is not high, but the lower limit is not low.
Gao Wen was in a tough fight.
"6:3", "2:6", "6:1".
The entire match took two hours and twenty-three minutes. The course of the match was far more difficult than the score. In the end, Gao Wen fought for three sets, improved his condition in the deciding set, firmly controlled the match, defeated Auger-Aliassime, and advanced to the semi-finals, finally achieving an important victory on the clay court.
In this game, victory is important, very, very important, but more importantly, we had a strong confrontation with Agut at the baseline and played in good form.
As we all know, clay court events often fall into a baseline tug-of-war. The ability to hit the ball in the baseline round is of utmost importance, especially the ability to switch between offense and defense. The requirements are more stringent than on hard courts and grass. If the basic skills at the baseline are not solid enough, they will all be exposed on the clay court.
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Facing a baseline master like Auger-Aliassime, they did not have much fighting at the net, but Gawain really played in the baseline and was bloodthirsty.
In the long run, Gao Wen needs such matches, and more than one or two, to complete the test of clay.
really!
Facts soon proved this point.
Next up, the semi-finals.
Gao Wen will face Slovak player Martin-Klizan, who has also seen a meteoric rise in the world rankings last year.
Born in 1989, his world ranking was outside 100 at the beginning of last year, but now he is ranked 24th, continuously breaking his personal career best; and he had a good performance last year defeating players such as Fognini and Kei Nishikori, so he can be regarded as a member of the "Challenger Storm".
However, facing Gawain, Klizan's baseline shots were completely unable to keep up, and his performance throughout the game was continuously suppressed, becoming a direct witness to Gawain's improvement on clay courts.
“6:2”, “6:1”.
Gao Wen only lost three games and the whole match took only 73 minutes. He had already entered the singles final of the fifth event of the season with his head held high.
This time, Gao Wen will face a familiar old opponent in the finals.
Kei Nishikori.
Another showdown between the current No. 1 and No. 2 male stars in Asia.
But wait, Kei Nishikori? How could it be Kei Nishikori?
(End of this chapter)