Chapter 174 Singles Competition
On May 21, 2014, after a brief one-day adjustment, the U.S. Championships resumed, and individual competitions were fully launched, with men's singles and women's singles starting on the same day.
As mentioned above, because all NCAA regular season games are team games, the particularity of the game rules and the objective existence of league divisions have led to direct results:
The national rankings often fail to reflect a player's true strength. There is a gap between the first and sixty-fourth place, but it is definitely not as significant as imagined.
Moreover, NCAA players are still young, and their focus is on learning. They do not have enough competition experience. Naturally, the young players' unstable performance and obvious fluctuations in form are further highlighted in the intensive schedule of the National Championships.
After experiencing the fierce competition in the team competition, it is very likely that you will become physically exhausted and your energy will decline.
It is precisely because of this that individual competitions are often prone to "upsets", and this happens every year.
This year is no exception.
On the first day of the men's singles competition, there were many upsets, just like a Siberian cold wave sweeping across Athens, and one could feel the chill even in this hot summer.
The number one seed, Linz from Baylor University, was eliminated in two sets, losing unexpectedly to the number three singles player Andrew-Adams from the University of South Carolina. He only won four games in the whole match and lost without any temper. Even Adams himself couldn't believe his victory.
The second seed, Thompson from the University of California, Los Angeles, clearly felt exhausted in his match against Roberto-Cid from the University of South Florida. He made frequent mistakes at critical moments and ultimately lost both sets by a break of serve.
From here we can feel that the team match at the Forbidden City was an exhausting match for both teams. The score seemed to be a 4:0 sweep for UCLA, but every match, including Gawain’s, was actually full of suspense.
Thompson, indeed, is powerless——
The same is true for the University of Southern California.
Hanfman and Sacramento, who tried their best in the finals, also lost in their individual events.
Hanfman still played tough. He fought for three tiebreaks and lost two. The score in the final set tiebreak was "5:7", and he lost to his opponent by a hair's breadth.
It was obvious that Saramento could feel that his mind and energy could not keep up. He played like a sleepwalker throughout the game. The quality of his defense collapsed severely, and it was difficult to form a confrontation in the game. He lost to a little-known opponent from Duke University with two "6:1"s, ending all his college games.
Regret is regret after all, but this is the cruelest and most realistic part of competitive sports. Not all "goodbyes" can leave a beautiful back view.
The last game of Sacramento's tennis career was ugly and embarrassing; however, Sacramento had no regrets, because in that team match, he had given his all without reservation, and that moment of brilliance was what defined his existence.
But it was more than just the two teams in the team competition finals. The impact of the entire team competition spread across the board.
No. 5 seed, Felipe Soares of Texas Tech; No. 6 seed, Alex Domyan of Virginia; No. 7 seed, Tim Kopinski of Illinois; No. 11 seed, Jared Hiltzik of Illinois --
All lose!
completely annihilated!
No one survived!
It is very worth mentioning that the fourth seed, Mitchell Frank of the University of Virginia, will face MacKenzie McDonald of the University of California, Los Angeles in the first round, which is also a focus matchup in the first round.
McDonald played exceptionally well, and finally defeated the strong opponents with scores of "6:2" and "7:5" and entered the second round! McDonald also successfully joined the "anti-dark horse" lineup of the first day of the game, bursting out together, moving forward hand in hand, and blowing the horn to disrupt the event draw.
incredible!
Unbelievable! Incredible!
In fact, including the Big Four of men's tennis and the legendary superstar Serena Williams of women's tennis, they have all said on different occasions that the first round of any tournament is the most difficult, especially the Grand Slam.
Because it is the first round of the game, players often need to adapt to the new venue, weather, atmosphere and opponents, which more or less requires challenging their condition. Once they encounter an impactful opponent, the game can easily come to a stalemate.
Moreover, Grand Slams and top tournaments have qualifiers, and those low-ranked players need to go through three or two rounds of qualifying to win a spot in the main draw. Although the qualifiers are ranked lower, they have played three rounds and are fully adapted to the venue, which gives them a slight advantage.
It is also because of this that upsets often occur in the first round of games.
The same situation is naturally likely to occur in individual events of the U.S. Championships.
In the first round of the U.S. Championship every year, upsets are very common and people have long been accustomed to it. But even so, a situation like this year with so many upsets is really too rare. A seed is dropped almost every turn, as if all the seeded players couldn't play overnight.
So much so that ESPN reported it on the front page of its official website, witnessing the important historical moment when the cold winter arrived in Athens in May.
After the first round, only five of the top sixteen seeds made it to the next round. Among them, only one of the top eight seeds made it through.
The third seed, Marcos Giron of UCLA.
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It's the Bruins again! In the entire process of winning the team competition, Gowen was the shining star, and McDonald's accumulated strength and Thompson's high morale also attracted a lot of attention. However, what about Giron? Giron, once known as the "little prince", seemed to have disappeared.
UCLA made history by winning both the men's and women's team championships, but the name of the prodigy, Gillon, did not appear on the headlines. In a trance, forgetful people had long forgotten that at the beginning of the season, Thompson and Gillon were hailed as the twin stars of the Bruins.
And now? No one remembers that the Bruins' No. 2 is also a top-tier player.
Until the individual competitions start in full swing.
All the top seeds were eliminated, and the top eight seeds were almost wiped out. Only Jilong became the only survivor and advanced to the second round with a strong performance, retaining the last bit of face of the seeded players. This made the audience and the players suddenly realize -
Oh, the Bruins have such a master hidden!
etc!
Geelong won, and MacDonald also won... Individual competitions shouldn't be the only stage for UCLA to shine...right?
Thompson lost. Should we say "fortunately"? In any case, at least one of the four singles players of the Bruins finally dropped.
So, what about Gawain?
Fourth update.
(End of this chapter)