Chapter 268 is familiar with the script
"Set, high, 6:2".
The referee's voice echoed over Court No. 1, announcing the final score of the first set amid the booing of the audience.
Gao Wen, play the next game first.
Zverev was unable to find his touch in the early stages of the game. To be more precise, he was unable to find an effective way to score. His shots lacked purpose. He just exerted force and returned the ball blindly. Only his body was moving and hitting the ball on the court, but his brain was not thinking.
Simply put, the playing style of teenagers is not much different from that of the NCAA, relying solely on physical talent to hit the ball.
Gao Wen is very familiar with this kind of game style. Even if Zverev is gifted and better than Sacramento, he cannot really shake Gao Wen's ability to control the game. After all, Zverev's strength and burst are his weaknesses and he cannot suppress Gao Wen.
So, he first defended and then broke, then defended and broke again, "4:0", Gao Wen gained an absolute advantage at the beginning.
At the end of the first set, Zverev finally calmed down a little, found his serve form, and served out consecutive aces, which enabled him to hold his serve for the first time. However, the score in the first set was too far behind and it was impossible to catch up. In the end, Gawain still won the first set steadily.
Is this a standard ending? In this year's Binghamton Challenge, Zverev always did this. In the first four rounds, he lost the first set inexplicably in the first and third rounds, and then won two sets in a row to advance. In the second round, he won two sets in a row, but the first set was also a close one. He didn't get back to form until the semifinals.
Slow start seems to have become Zverev's label, and the local audience in Binghamton is no longer surprised.
Seeing that Zverev lost the first set against Gawain, the audience started shouting.
"Please, Sasha, wake up, don't sleep."
"Sasha, are you sober now?"
"Routine, routine, I've read the script, Sasha."
"Can you change the script, Sasha? The current one doesn't look good."
"Sasha, the best actor, the Oscar winner!"
Hahaha.
The audience burst into laughter, teasing Zverev. Because the script was so familiar, the audience was not too surprised. Just look at the last four games of the first set, and you will know that Zverev has gradually regained his form, which also means that the second set should be very exciting, so they still have the mind to make jokes -
Although the first game was almost a mess.
But for Zverev, it was not funny at all.
How is this possible? How can this be possible?
He lost the first set to that nobody, and in such a humiliating way? This was a great shame! Hearing the laughter from the audience, Zverev's first reaction was to shut them up, but his remaining rationality told him that this was inappropriate. So what should he do?
Bang! Bang! Bang! Zverev smashed his racket hard on the ground, once! Twice! Three times! Then the racket was smashed into a twisted shape, and it was no longer usable. Only then did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Zverev returned to the rest area angrily, grabbed a bottle of mineral water, and gulped it down. The bulging veins on his arms showed that he was still furious, but his brain had finally calmed down a little. He needed to think carefully about how he lost the first set? Was it really just a slow start? Because the last game of the first set was Gawain's serve, the second set started with Zverev's serve. Zverev finally got his wish and served first.
Ping pong.
In a blink of an eye, Zverev had taken a "30:0" lead, continuing his good form in the final stage of the first set. Although he made a mistake in the next point, he still maintained a "30:15" lead.
change?
Zverev did make some changes, mainly in two aspects. The first was to strengthen his serve. The first point in the second set was an ace. He does have such ability. The second was to take the initiative to attack, or to take the initiative to exert force.
Although strength and burst are Zverev's weaknesses, they are only relative. In fact, he still has the ability to actively attack. Even if he cannot compare with the violent forehands of Del Potro, Kyrgios, and Safin, he also has the potential to be a first-class player.
Of the three points in this game, except for the two points of ACE, all were led by Zverev Jr., who scored once and made a mistake once.
Zverev is changing, and Gawain is judging: What do these signs indicate?
This shows that Zverev, who is only 17 years old this year, still lacks the ability to read the game and is far from mature. His summary and judgment of the first set was that he did not exert enough strength.
Because of the insufficient suppression at the power level, he was unable to bring enough impact to Gao Wen and fell into a passive position repeatedly. So he began to exert his strength, improving the release of power in both serve and forehand, and the number of active attacks also increased significantly.
Is this judgment correct?
It cannot be said to be wrong.
At least on the surface, Zverev was unable to create more pressure on Gawain on the offensive end in the first set, which did allow Gawain to expand his play.
But the essential reason is the layout of the batting line and the wisdom of on-the-spot response.
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Zverev's hitting style is monotonous and continuous, and his lines are predictable and lack variation, which means that Gawain's changes are always ahead of Zverev, allowing him to always have the upper hand in strong clashes.
As mentioned before, in professional competitions, talents are often very similar. It is very, very difficult to suppress the opponent by relying on strength and speed. Even a super genius like Kyrgios finds it difficult to do so. This also means that the real competition in professional competitions is still about condition, brain and spirit.
Zverev's hitting ability is indeed very good. At least at this stage, his ability is already one step ahead of Gao Wen. However, his strong baseline hitting ability cannot form an advantage in line changes, so he is just having brute force in vain.
The start of the second set seemed to be just like that. It seemed to be a grand and colorful match. Zverev's morale was rising rapidly, but on this side, Gawain remained as still as a mountain and was always observing calmly.
At least that was Gao Wen's judgment at the beginning, and the next point further confirmed Gao Wen's idea.
Push! Push! Push!
Zverev Jr. exerted force for three consecutive shots, and his offensive was like a tide, but there was nothing new in his lines, and they were all accurately predicted by Gao Wen: diagonal line, diagonal line, and straight line.
Gao Wen's lateral movement ability was fully utilized. Although Zverev's attack was stronger and stronger, so that Gao Wen could not reverse the disadvantageous situation, his defense was always in place in time. Zverev's three consecutive forehand attacks that were determined to win were all stubbornly defended by Gao Wen.
Boom! Boom! Boom! It looked like a grand match, but Zverev was unable to score any points. The tense situation made the audience hold their breath.
Then in the next shot, we can see that Zverev has already entered the baseline directly, ready to enter the front half to exert pressure——
Aggressive!
Second update.
(End of this chapter)