Chapter 472 sparked a hot search
"The End of the Big Four Era". This topic is not unfamiliar to tennis fans. It has entered the public eye since the beginning of this season. The starting point is undoubtedly when Wawrinka won his first Grand Slam championship at the age of 28. His performance in defeating two giants, Djokovic and Nadal, on the way to the finals was convincing. He then won his first Masters championship and remained at the top of the championship points list.
The ATP ranking actually has two lists, one is the world ranking and the other is the championship points list.
For the former, the points are calculated for a full fifty-two weeks. For example, if it is the first week of September now, then the points are calculated from the first week of September last year to the last week of August this year, and the rankings are listed to comprehensively look at the best performing players within the twelve-month period.
The latter calculates the points of the natural year, that is, calculates the points starting from January 1 of this year. This point can show the best performing players in the natural year, and then the number of players who can enter the annual year-end finals will be determined based on this list.
Generally speaking, when a natural year ends, the points of the two lists will be unified and the rankings will remain consistent; then the championship points list will be cleared, waiting for the arrival of a new natural year.
The strength of the "Big Four" is reflected in the stability of the world rankings. Even though some players occasionally perform particularly well at the beginning of the season in the championship standings, the Big Four are always able to slowly catch up as time goes by.
In the first half of this year, Wawrinka's dominant performance was indeed amazing. He topped the championship standings, which naturally focused people's attention on the Big Four.
Murray seems to have fallen behind due to injuries as he hasn't won a championship for more than a year. Federer's age and Nadal's injuries are already old news. Even Djokovic's attention is distracted by his family. The dominance of the Big Four has clearly weakened.
At Wimbledon, Raonic and Dimitrov both reached the semi-finals; at the US Open, Gawain and Cilic went one step further and both reached the finals.
The most incredible thing is that not long ago people were still discussing when the “post-90s” would take over, but Gao Wen, who was born in 1995, has already made history by advancing to the Grand Slam final.
If Gawain's upset victory over Djokovic was explosive enough, then Cilic's straight-set elimination of Federer was like igniting the powder keg.
For Cilic and Gao Wen, it is actually good news for both sides, because the opponents they face in the final are newcomers with no experience in Grand Slam finals, and the gap in strength and experience between the two is not that big - Cilic has a slight advantage but it is very limited. Whoever can have stronger pressure resistance in Arthur Ashe Stadium and show his best level at the critical moment will have the opportunity to reach the top: then this will also be the third non-Big Four member to win a Grand Slam title in the past ten years, after Del Potro and Wawrinka.
History is being written! Then, the news wave exploded.
Here, the North American and European continents were already stunned, dumbfounded -
They were looking forward to "Djokovic vs. Federer", but what happened was "Gawain vs. Cilic". This shocking upset was so shocking that even after seeing it written in black and white, they still doubted their eyes.
Cursing, spitting, wailing, complaining, speechless and other emotions are flying everywhere. They are not directed at Gawain or Cilic, but are just the conditioned reflexes of competitive sports fans. "Who wants to watch a dark horse showdown! I want to watch a peak showdown!" "Who are these two guys?" "The quality of the final will definitely be terrible."
Amid the hustle and bustle, the hashtag "The Big Four's record of 38 consecutive Grand Slam finals was broken" became a global hot search.
Obviously, fans are paying attention to the big four, not the two dark horses.
But hidden among them, the topic tag "American champion holds wild card and writes a Hollywood fairy tale" also made it into the hot search list.
Obviously, Gao Wen still has a certain appeal.
Whether it was the NCAA national champion holding a wild card issued by the United States Tennis Association, or Gao Wen wearing the UCLA team uniform throughout the competition, it was very friendly and very popular to the fans and spectators; what's more, from the "self-introduction" in the first game to the "talk show" in the semi-finals, Gao Wen's personal charm also won applause from the fans.
"I think Gao Wen is good. I watched his first round match with John and he played very well."
"Am I the only one who likes being tall?"
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I hate that Cilic eliminated my Roger, so I support Gao."
"You should watch Gao Wen's semi-finals. He played really well. I think it's good for him to make the finals."
"Even though we can't see the Big Four, it's still some fresh faces. What's wrong with that?"
"Thirty-eight times in a row? God, now I understand why I thought those faces were so familiar."
"I support new faces in the finals, and Gao Wen is good."
There are still many voices of support on social networks, especially Tobias who just added fuel to the fire by re-pushing the video of Gawain comforting the little fans after the second round of the game. This allowed the audience to see Gawain's big boy side in private and created another wave of topics.
If they had to choose between the two players in the final, I'm afraid the New York audience already has the answer.
Over there, the Chinese continent finally encountered chaos and war after dawn.
“It exploded, it exploded…”
A burst of roaring sounds exploded in the corridor outside the CCTV-5 conference room. Even through the glass wall, one could see the bustling figures outside, all crowded together. The heat wave was surging like magma, so that the meeting in the conference room was interrupted.
Zhang Heng couldn't help it, he stood up suddenly, pushed away the chair, turned around, pushed open the door of the conference room, and roared.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
"What exploded? Was it the water pipe or the toilet?"
"Coach Zhang... the trending search has exploded. Gao Wen's trending search."
"What's going on?"
"The top three on the trending search list are all high-quality articles. The number of readers has exceeded 500 million, and is still rising. The online replay of last night's semi-finals has also exceeded 10 million."
Huh.
There was a sound of people gasping in shock in the conference room.
At this moment, they were discussing the arrangements for the live broadcast of the US Open men's singles final. Because Gao Wen's historic moment was given the highest priority, they expected the response to be very enthusiastic, but when they heard the numbers, they were still surprised to the point of dislocating their jaws.
There was no such wave of excitement when Li Na won the French Open in 2011.
Of course, there are various reasons. Three years ago, the tennis craze was far from being as strong as it is now. Moreover, the breakthrough of women's tennis is visible to the naked eye. It has been rising slowly step by step, and the final sublimation from quantitative change to qualitative change is more natural, so the degree of shock is not so exaggerated.
Even so, no matter what, witnessing the waves caused by Gao Wen's advancement to the finals, my heart couldn't help but beat wildly.
(End of this chapter)