Chapter 799: Passing by

Dustin Brown is the weirdest player in men's professional tennis. It is no exaggeration to say that he is like an alien.

Brown's best performance in his career was on grass, because his serve and forehand were heavy weapons with great lethality. He advanced to the third round at Wimbledon twice in his career.

In addition, Brown defeated Nadal twice on grass in Halle in 2014 and Wimbledon in 2015, which became the highlight of his entire career. At the same time, Brown defeated Isner in Houston in 2014, which was also a shocking upset.

Nadal is a very disciplined player, and as can be seen from his numerous obsessive-compulsive disorders, he is not a player who is good at dealing with drastic changes.

In 2009, Nadal's parents divorced and his life experienced drastic changes. For ordinary people, this may not be a big deal, but for Nadal it was a heavy blow. For a long time, Nadal fell into a struggling trough because he did not like such unexpected changes.

Of course, this does not mean that Nadal is not good at dealing with changes on the court. In fact, he and Federer are the two top players in professional tennis who are the calmest and most outstanding in dealing with emergencies. This talent is even higher than that of Djokovic and Murray.

Rather, it means that Nadal is not good at dealing with... "imagination".

Brown is just such a player with an otherworldly imagination; and, by chance, both of Brown and Nadal's encounters took place on grass, which was also the period when Brown was in his best form.

As a result, Brown has an incredible career record:

He is the only player to remain undefeated against Nadal.

This time, in Doha, Brown, the nervous knife, once again broke through the siege, won two games in a row, advanced to the quarterfinals, and will face Gawain next.

Was this an accidental fate? It was obvious that Nadal did not like Brown's hitting style.

Because Nadal was completely unable to predict Brown's next move, which did not conform to the rules of tennis, the rules of hitting, and even had no tactics or routines to speak of. Everything was unpredictable, which made the game always in a state of chaos.

Although Kyrgios, Monfils and Dolbogolov's shots also break the framework, at least they have a context, but Brown does not, nothing at all. Some of his shots are even inexplicable, and even tennis beginners would not hit the ball like this.

If it is grass or fast hard court, the pace of the whole game will be further improved, compressing the players' thinking time, and Brown's advantage will be further magnified.

After the press conference, Gawain took the initiative to ask Nadal, because Brown mainly participated in the challenge tournament and it was difficult to collect more game information, and Sampras was unable to formulate a clear game plan. It would be great if Nadal could provide some information.

However, after hearing Gawain's question, Nadal did not answer immediately. It was not that he did not want to answer, but he did not know how to answer.

It's a bit difficult.

"...Don't try to guess how he hits the ball. Once you start thinking, he might drag you down."

After thinking for a long time, Nadal finally spoke. As soon as he finished speaking, he couldn't help but let out a bitter smile, and then he patted Gawain on the shoulder.

"I have been trying to understand his shot selection and tactics, but I still don't have the answer. It seems that I still have a lot to learn in tennis."

"Sorry, I can't help you."

"Stick to yourself, play at your own pace, don't be too paranoid, and change ahead of him, maybe you can open up the situation."

In fact, so far, Nadal has only faced Brown once and lost the game, so the information he can provide is indeed limited; otherwise, according to historical trajectory, Nadal would not have lost to Brown again in Wimbledon in July this year.

But Gawain knew that what Nadal said was true, limited but sincere, and a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"You mean, think like an alien?"

Nadal was slightly stunned, laughed, and then nodded slightly to express his affirmation, "Yes, just like aliens."

Gawain's eyes lit up, and he made a fly-rubbing-hands gesture and said happily, "Great, I finally met another alien visiting Earth. I always thought I was alone. I must ask him if he is from my home planet."

One second, two seconds.

"Ha ha."

Nadal took two seconds to react before he understood Gawain's joke and laughed happily.

One in front and one behind, the two doubles partners went in different directions. Nadal went to the practice field for extra training. At the beginning of the season, he still needed to stay on the court as much as possible to find his form; while Gawain went to the gym to ride a bicycle to relieve muscle pain and prepare for subsequent games.

After the first match of the doubles semi-finals, the singles quarter-finals officially kicked off, with two matches in the lower half taking place first.

In the first game, two veterans faced off, Andreas Seppi of Italy against Ivan Dodig of Croatia. In the end, Seppi won both games with a break advantage, winning in straight sets and advancing to the semi-finals first.

In the second game, two "green leaf" players of the same generation as the Big Four faced off, Czech player Tomas Berdych faced French player Richard Gasquet. Over the past year, the performance curves of the two players have been one going up and one going down. When they met again in the new season, the gap was quite obvious.

"6:2", "6:1", Berdych lost only three games in the whole match and easily defeated Gasquet, rewriting the head-to-head record between the two sides to five wins and six losses.

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As a result, the matchups for the top four in the lower half of the Doha Open were revealed first, with Berdych vs. Seppi, which was a little surprising.

However, as the third seed, Berdych continued his excellent competitive form, and advancing to the semi-finals was what everyone expected, not to mention the upper half of the draw. Then, in the eager anticipation, Gawain appeared.

Facing Brown, Gawain was fully prepared.

Indeed, Brown's batting is often unexpected, his wild imagination is simply impossible to judge, and he often makes unconventional batting choices.

But Brown was facing Gawain, who was good at "changing with change". He was not only able to gain advantages for himself through tactical layout, but also to change ahead of others.

Rhythm changes, combination of long and short, adjustment of depth, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, uneven weight...

In terms of variation, perhaps Gawain’s imagination is not that of an alien, but his layout ability is far superior to his opponent’s, not to mention his solid and outstanding hitting ability.

“6:2”, “6:2”.

Without a single blow, Gawain easily defeated Brown and advanced to the semi-finals. Instantly, he could feel the entire stadium boiling with excitement, unable to suppress it at all.

"Gawain vs. Djokovic 4.0", is it about to happen?

However, ideals are full, but reality is skinny, because Djokovic suffered a shocking upset and lost to Karlovic in three sets and was eliminated in the quarterfinals.

(End of this chapter)