Chapter 1998: Growth of Mind
Plop, plop——
You don't need to close your eyes to feel the force of your heart pounding against your chest. The expectant and excited mood is surging like hot spring water. The temperature of your blood and skin is slowly rising. The slight numbness from your fingertips, with a slight throbbing, gently permeates your breath.
Even though I have been through three Grand Slam finals and even though I stepped onto this court last year, today is still different.
This is the year-end finals, this is the stage where the eight best players of the year compete on the same stage, this is the ultimate battle that ends the entire season, this is the space to witness the purest and most essential charm of competitive sports shining, just like the World Cup and the Olympics.
Every appearance, every competition, and every collision is a new challenge.
This time, he did not appear as a substitute, but appeared as the second seed and became a part of this grand event.
The state of mind undergoes a transformation quietly.
Even three months ago, in Flushing, Gao Wen still put himself in the position of a challenger and attacker. Not only was he facing giants like Federer and Djokovic, but he was also facing all challenges and competitions as the defending champion. That kind of mentality still needs to be learned from scratch.
But now, Gao Wen believes that he can be compared with these top masters.
It was not because of the praise from the media's "Fifth Giant", but because of one victory after another, among which the two victories of defending the US Open and the Paris Masters were the most important. They made Gao Wen's confidence completely established, believing that he could beat anyone and that he was already at the top of the world.
Last year, at the O2, he was the challenger.
This year, at the O2, he was the contender.
A little change in mentality and a little transformation can see the change of the whole person's temperament from the inside out.
This was the first time that Gawain truly exuded the energy of a giant.
expect.
Joyful.
Excited.
He was happy to compete with a master, and excited to continue challenging his limits. The energy transmitted by his heartbeat made Gao Wen gradually focus. He was already focused on the game before his official debut, and he completely entered the competitive mode, with his high morale burning silently.
Go all out and keep fighting——
He is ready to fight.
It is precisely because of this that Gao Wen quickly got into the game from the first game and his competitive state was at its best.
After all, this is the year-end finals, and every round is a fierce battle, with no time to improve step by step; what's more, the opponent across the net today is still Wawrinka! Perhaps the media and netizens may underestimate Wawrinka's state, but Gao Wen will not.
In fact, since winning the Roland Garros championship by defeating Federer, Galvin and Djokovic in succession, Wawrinka has seemed a little lacking in ability.
Starting from Wimbledon and continuing all the way to the European indoor hard court season, the overall performance was unsatisfactory.
In fact, it is not that Wawrinka's performance was bad, but that people held him to different standards. After all, he is a two-time Grand Slam champion, the same as Gawain. Wawrinka also bears a lot of pressure, and his position and mentality have quietly changed dramatically.
Naturally, when Wawrinka stepped onto the court, the whole feeling was different.
Things changed after I won the Australian Open last year, and they changed again after I won the French Open this year.
Wawrinka had to slowly adjust again and again, facing situations that were similar yet subtly different each time. It was a long process.
Throughout the Asian season and the European indoor hard court season, Wawrinka's performance was unsatisfactory. Losing was a problem, and a crushing defeat was even more of a problem.
It was not until the Paris Masters that Wawrinka defeated Nadal, who had made a strong comeback at the end of the season, in two tie-breaks, and people finally saw some signs of his recovery.
However, in Gao Wen's opinion, never underestimate Wawrinka's explosive power.
Be it last year's Australian Open or this year's French Open, Wawrinka burst out with incredible energy despite being underdogs, repeatedly overthrowing and counterattacking, and finally winning the championship by defeating two giants. This slowly opened the grand prelude to the full rise of the Challenger League.
When he came to London, Wawrinka was an "unknown factor", especially when he was placed in the Ilie Nastase group, his prospects were even more unpredictable.
Sampras and Agassi analyzed Wawrinka's recent matches in detail. It was slightly different from what they expected. Wawrinka's problem was not with his backhand, but with his forehand.
Of course, offense is a system. Tennis is a sport where one move affects the entire body. There are often complex reasons behind problems in one link, just like Wawrinka. In fact, his backhand attack accuracy has also declined, but in the eyes of Sampras and Agassi, the forehand is the foundation.
Wawrinka's backhand can often become a weapon to break the balance in a passive situation, but in fact, Wawrinka's forehand is the source of the attack; at the same time, Wawrinka's forehand is still stable and strong, so including Gao Wen, they often choose to break through from his backhand.
But in the past few months, Wawrinka's forehand stability has declined, and he can't control the ball.
That is, it can't withstand the rotation.
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He often uses too much force. The so-called force means using force to suppress rotation and launch an unreasonable attack. However, he uses too much force because his hitting hand cannot handle the rotation. Delicate control is not Wawrinka's strong point, so he tends to increase strength, which leads to loss of control.
Therefore, it is very difficult for Wawrinka to meet Nadal in recent times.
Even when he got revenge at the Paris Masters, the scores were tied in two tie-breaks, and the scores in both sets were very close. The premise is that these were all indoor hard court matches, and Nadal's spin had been greatly weakened, and the power was far from comparable to that of normal hard courts, and Wawrinka was still a weak opponent.
From Basel to Paris and then to London, Wawrinka has been adjusting, but meeting Gawain in the first game is not good news for Wawrinka.
Although Gawain's understanding of spin is not as good as Nadal's, Gawain has varied tactics and rich skills, and his interpretation of indoor hard courts is better than Nadal's.
and!
Gao Wen has not forgotten the regrettable defeat in Roland Garros. He knows Wawrinka's strength. Even on clay, he can still defeat others, let alone on indoor hard courts. So he was fully alert and vigilant. He took the initiative from the first game to restrict Wawrinka.
As careful as Zhan Jun was, he noticed it right away.
“Gawain’s whole temperament for the game is different.”
It’s hard to describe it specifically, but Gawain, standing on the court, is definitely different.
In the first game, Gao Wen broke the serve.
Wawrinka saved three break points but missed a game point. Then on the fourth break point, his forehand failed to connect with the ball from deep in the baseline and the return ball went out of bounds. He was broken in the first game and fell into a passive position.
"0:1".
(End of this chapter)