Chapter 306 Draw
The draw for the 2014 US Open was released as early as Monday and attracted much attention.
In the 1/4 zone, Djokovic is in charge.
Overall, the competition in this zone is not strong, and there is a lack of strong opponents worth mentioning. The biggest highlight will have to wait until the quarterfinals, because the opponent in the quarterfinals is the eighth seed Murray. If all goes well, the two giants Djokovic and Murray will fight for a place in the semi-finals.
But the prerequisite is that Murray needs to face the ninth seed Jo-Wilfried-Tsonga who just defeated him in the Rogers Cup in the fourth round. Only by passing the test can he meet Djokovic in the quarterfinals.
In zone 2/4, Wawrinka leads the way.
This is also considered the death zone. Fifth seed Raonic, tenth seed Kei Nishikori, thirteenth seed Isner, and twenty-first seed Mikhail Youzhny are all concentrated here. Among them, Raonic is the champion of this year's US Open series and is very competitive.
In addition, rising stars Kyrgios, Sock, and Vasek-Pospisil were all drawn into this division.
In the 3/4 zone, Ferrer is in charge.
This zone is generally considered to be a mixed bag because of the similar strength and countless possibilities for development. Ferrer, nicknamed "the stable man", has always lacked a dominance in the Grand Slam tournaments. Although he has an excellent resume of two Australian Open semi-finals, two US Open semi-finals and 2012 French Open runner-up, he is still not a giant-level player.
In this area, Berdych, Marin Cilic, Ernests Gulbis, Kevin Anderson and other good players are all gathered. Everyone has the possibility of breaking through, but no one can have the strong strength to win.
Moreover, former world No. 1 Hewitt is also in this division. In addition, Thiem is also here.
Zone 4/4, Federer leads the way.
Despite the lack of strong competitors, potential minefields are everywhere, including Gael Monfils, Richard Gasquet, Fabio Fognini and Roberto Bautista Agut.
They are all competitive and impactful players who can create chaos.
In addition, in the quarterfinals, Federer's opponent is Dimitrov, who is known as the "Little Federer". If they can meet, it will be an interesting matchup.
Looking at the four major divisions, overall, the upper half is full of difficulties, while the lower half is more open to competition. If you want to create an upset, then Zones 3/4 and 4/4 are undoubtedly the best choices, but the draw still requires a little bit of luck.
Normally, the draws for the qualifiers and wild-card players receive virtually no media attention, as the attention paid to the players is close to zero.
Unless Serena Williams returns from injury to play in a Grand Slam with a wild card, people will be curious about which division the queen will disrupt. Otherwise, who cares about which draw position the qualifiers and wild card players will enter? But today, Zhan Jun and Hu Litao arrived at the press conference early, waiting for the draw result.
No matter what, they all wanted to see where Gao Wen, the Chinese men's singles seedling, would be assigned. And unlike Wu Di and Zhang Ze before, precisely because they knew nothing about Gao Wen, they were inevitably more excited, especially when they saw the three glittering golden challenge trophies. They tried their best to suppress their anticipation but still couldn't control it.
The process of the supplementary draw is very simple. It starts from the 1/4 area and ends at the 4/4 area. Every time you see a blank space, you draw the name of a qualifying player or wildcard player from the box and then paste it on the corresponding space.
1/4 zone…No.
Hu Litao secretly regretted that he had missed the opportunity.
Aleksandr Nedovyesov, Pablo Carreno-Busta and Radek Stepanek are all unseeded players.
Among them, Nedovsoev is mediocre, basically at the challenge tournament level; Stepanek was once glorious, and even reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in 2006, but his form has obviously declined now, and he may have a chance if he tries hard.
What a pity.
Soon, the draw ceremony entered the 2/4 zone.
Zhan Jun has good eyesight. With a quick scan, he noticed that the matchups for Raonic, Kei Nishikori, Lukas-Rosol and Benjamin-Becker were temporarily vacant; moreover, the vacant spot at the bottom of the 3/8 zone draw was chosen for the 13th seed Isner.
The situation is not good.
The entire 2/4 zone was not very good. Zhan Jun couldn't help but shake his head secretly. He nudged Hu Litao with his elbow and signaled with his eyes.
Hu Litao reacted immediately and frowned. He also noticed Isner at the first moment.
Isner is a tough nut to crack. Not only is he the current No. 1 player in the U.S., he was once ranked in the top 10 in the world in the first half of the year. He is also the most difficult player to deal with on the tour.
Serve cannon.
Following Andy Roddick, Isner is the representative cannon of the new generation of American tennis teams. He has excellent serving skills, speed, power and angles.
Moreover, the most terrifying thing is that his second serve also has the ability to speed up, and he can use rotation to break the balance when necessary, which also ensures his stability.
Compared to Roddick, Isner is two meters tall and his biggest weakness is mobility.
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In the tour, any player will have a headache when facing Isner, because Isner's serve is very stable, basically impregnable, even in the deciding set. This also means that it is very difficult to find opportunities in Isner's serve.
If there was a slight mistake in his serve, and Isner seized a break point, it might mean the end of the game.
Isner's most impressive achievements are two:
One was in the first round of the 2010 Wimbledon Tennis Championships, when he and Nicolas-Mahut teamed up to create a historical record.
In the fifth and final set, the two players scored 70:68. The match lasted for three days and a total of eleven hours and five minutes, breaking a series of records including the longest match, the most total number of games, the most aces in a single game, the most winning points in a single game, etc.
Isner won.
In the past, Grand Slam tournaments all adopted a best-of-five format, and the deciding set had to be a long set. That is to say, when the score between the two sides reached a 6:6 tie, it did not enter a tiebreak, but one side had to win two games in a row to win. This is how Isner and Mahut created this miracle.
Later, for the sake of television broadcasts, the long-set deciding system gradually disappeared from the four Grand Slams, which also meant that Isner and Mahut's historical record could not be broken.
The second was the first round of the 2011 French Open, when he became the first player in history to force Nadal into a deciding set in the French Open. Although Nadal won in five sets, this match still went down in history.
This remains the case as of 2021, as Nadal has only played two five-set matches at the French Open, one of which was against Isner.
From this we can see how difficult Isner is. This is obviously not the best choice for the first round.
(End of this chapter)