Chapter 596 Paying Tuition
Earlier in the US Open, before playing against Djokovic, Gawain asked Dimitrov about his feelings about the game, but competitive sports are like this:
“What you learn from books is always shallow; one must practice it personally to truly understand it.”
Opinions are, after all, just reference opinions. Everyone's feelings, everyone's understanding and perceptions, everyone's responses and reactions are all different.
More importantly, every game is different, with the stadium, audience, weather, temperature, humidity and personal condition all factored in.
The most obvious thing is that Djokovic's condition has improved significantly compared to the US Open. Last week at the Imperial Capital Open, he swept Berdych in the final and won the championship, showing excellent competitive form. Obviously, after three weeks of rest and adjustment after losing in the US Open semi-finals, Djokovic is ready to compete for the world's number one at the end of the year.
This time in Shanghai, Gao Wen and Thiem talked about Djokovic's shots many times during their daily training, which helped Thiem prepare mentally.
However, objectively speaking, Thiem is still too young and immature, far from mature. His entire tactical system of hitting the ball has not yet taken shape. There are too many rounds in which he blindly exerts force and hits the ball. He lacks a clear tactical thinking, and there is still room for growth on both the technical and spiritual levels.
Moreover, the 23-year-old Thiem still plays in the typical clay court style and has not made any adjustments based on the hard court. He basically plays a head-on style. His ability to reach the fourth round at the US Open is a reflection of his own strength, as well as the result of his luck in the draw and his current form. It does not mean that he is good at hard courts.
On the fast hard court, facing Djokovic who maintained a balance on both offense and defense, it was indeed difficult for Thiem to open up the situation.
In fact, it was not until the 2017 French Open that Thiem defeated Djokovic for the first time in his career on the clay court he is best at, ending a five-game losing streak.
That victory was very interesting and Gao Wen was very impressed because Djokovic and Thiem met in the semi-finals of the Rome Masters two weeks before the French Open that year.
As a result, Thiem, who had already made a name for himself on clay, only won one game in the whole match and was swept by Djokovic, "6:1", "6:0", and almost swallowed a double egg yolk. The disastrous defeat shocked everyone.
Two weeks later at the French Open, Djokovic and Thiem met in the quarterfinals. Given the match not long ago, almost everyone thought Djokovic would win without a single blow, but the result was once again surprising:
"7:6(5)", "6:3", "6:0".
This time it was Thiem who had the last laugh, and he successfully gave away a bagel in the third set. Not only did he perfectly avenge his defeat in Rome, but he also defeated Djokovic for the first time in his career and reached the Grand Slam semi-finals for the first time in his career.
That game was an important turning point for Tim.
Since then, Thiem and Djokovic have faced each other six times, with Thiem leading with four wins and two losses, and two of those wins came on hard courts.
Return your attention to the game at hand.
Gao Wen did not leave immediately, but stood there and joined the other players. Watching the game of top players is also an important learning experience.
First of all, it must be admitted that Thiem in 2014 was still not mature enough in terms of strength and technology, and there was still room for growth, but he is now very impactful.
But facing Djokovic, impact is only one of the elements to win. Unless you are like Wawrinka or Kyrgios, who use unreasonable attacks to bombard the whole court continuously, it is difficult to win with ordinary impact.
Line layout and tactical combination are the most important keys.
Djokovic's ability to predict, layout and wrap different shots are unparalleled in the world. If the shot line cannot break the inertial thinking, it is easy to fall into Djokovic's encirclement covering the entire court, and then it becomes a situation of competing for the quality of the shot: if you are not careful, out of bounds or into the net is commonplace, and the entire offense becomes a situation of "the harder you try, the weaker you become"; if you are not careful again, Djokovic's defensive counterattack will be unleashed. He and Murray are top masters of offense and defense conversion, and they are hard to guard against.
Tim is still too honest. All his hitting lines are regular. He is just an honest and simple boy.
So the game was completely under Djokovic's control.
After watching only two games, Gao Wen hurried back to the locker room to prepare for the next doubles match. If nothing unexpected happens, Thiem will still not be able to break through Djokovic's iron wall for the time being.
This is indeed the case.
“6:3”, “6:4”.
Djokovic defeated Thiem in straight sets, and one statistic is worth noting:
Throughout the game, Thiem faced eight break points. Although Thiem saved six of them, he was broken once in each set and still lost the game.
If that were all, then Thiem and Johnson were similar, and there was no difference in the score. A horizontal comparison would be needed.
Djokovic only gave away two break points and saved them all. It was clear that at least Johnson was able to make some progress in Gawain's serve; while Djokovic firmly controlled the game situation and gave Thiem almost no chance in his own serve.
As a supplementary reference, Djokovic's first serve scoring rate is as high as 81%, which is a very, very outstanding statistic, further proving his dominance in his own serving games.
Obviously, Thiem also felt this deeply: although he did not read the post-match statistics, Thiem's own feelings were intuitive and real. The difficulty he felt in his own serve and the restraint he felt in Djokovic's serve, the layers of pressure came upon him, and he lost the victory in a daze.
The latest novel is published first on Liu9shuba!
In fact, if you imagine all the games against the Big Four as a game to pay tuition fees, the whole feeling will be different.
"Wow. Wow..."
After returning to the locker room, Tim did not have time to regret the defeat. After a quick shower, he joined Gawain in the gym for recovery training and to adjust his physical condition in preparation for the upcoming doubles match. It was not until he saw Gawain that he couldn't help bursting out with sighs and surprise.
It's neither sadness nor anger, but a kind of excitement, mixed with frustration, annoyance, irritability, unwillingness, excitement, joy, passion and amazement.
"What's going on with Novak's serve? There's nothing special about it, but he just can't find any chances."
"His serve is actually very powerful. Unlike Rafa, he often does not attack immediately after serving, but instead develops a layout. Therefore, the serve and the first shot are coordinated with each other. If you do not make changes in your return, it means you have fallen into his trap."
"…Is that so? Then how did you deal with it? Novak's first serve didn't leave much room for attack."
"Domi, don't think you can end the fight in one or two shots, that's Djokovic."
Chattering and rambling...Gawain and Tim became more and more excited and happy the more they talked.
(End of this chapter)