Chapter 810 A Spell
In professional tennis, winning a Grand Slam is undoubtedly a feat, with two weeks of competition, seven matches, and many top players competing.
If it is a men's competition, the difficulty of the five-set three-win system will be even higher.
It is precisely because of the difficulty of winning that the Grand Slam championship is so precious. Even though there are four Grand Slams every year, their rarity is far less than that of the Olympic Games and World Cup held every four years, but the value of the championship is unquestionable.
It is not easy for any player to win a Grand Slam title. After winning the first title, he or she quickly becomes the target of public criticism, and it becomes even more difficult to win the second title. The helplessness and struggle of "one-Grand Slam players" has always been an unavoidable story in professional tennis.
Among them, the situation in men's tennis and women's tennis is slightly different.
The "one Grand Slam" phenomenon is so common in women's tennis because it is difficult for them to perform consistently; in men's tennis, the difficulty of reaching the top is beyond imagination because the competition is fierce.
However, despite the difficulties, the most wonderful and moving thing about competitive sports is that people constantly challenge themselves and their limits. There are always people who can do it, and then create one record after another, and wait for latecomers to surpass them, break the records again, and write new peaks.
The limits are always being refreshed.
However, there is such a little-known "curse" in men's professional tennis that has not been broken yet:
After winning the first Grand Slam trophy in his career, he immediately won the second one.
In other words, after a breakthrough, there will be further breakthroughs.
You can imagine how difficult it is, but it is not impossible. More than one player in women's tennis has accomplished such a feat.
Evonne-Fay-Goolagong-Cawley won her first French Open in 1971 and then went on to win Wimbledon.
Chris Evert won Wimbledon right after winning his first French Open in 1974.
Venus Williams, in 2000, won the Wimbledon Championships for the first time and then the US Open.
Jennifer Capriati, 2001, won the Australian Open for the first time and then the French Open.
Naomi Osaka, from 2018 to 2019, won the US Open for the first time and then the Australian Open the following year.
And so on and so forth.
Although the number is not large, it is still quite a few. It can be seen that the difficulty coefficient is very high. However, there are still many challengers who have achieved breakthroughs.
But, very surprisingly, no one has ever been able to do it in men's professional tennis.
Obviously, after winning the Grand Slam title for the first time in their career, male players seem to fall into a low spell and get lost for a short while.
If you study it in depth, you will find that, both before and after the Open Era, there is only one person who has made it to back-to-back Grand Slam finals after winning his first Grand Slam title: In 2012, Murray won the US Open and finally made a breakthrough in his career. Then at the Australian Open at the beginning of the following year, Murray performed well again and made it to the final.
In other words, in the 100-year history of professional tennis, it was not until 2012 that Murray broke the shackles and completed the feat of reaching the finals back to back after winning the championship for the first time.
Unfortunately, in the 2013 Australian Open final, Murray lost to Djokovic and missed the chance to make history.
In fact, even if we push it back ten years, in 2021, Medvedev won the US Open for the first time, and then reached the final of the Australian Open the following year. He was only the second player after Murray to accomplish such a feat. However, he unfortunately lost to Nadal in the final and finished second.
This is really unbelievable. Even if you don’t want to believe it, this is the reality... It’s like a ghost wall.
Let's take a simple horizontal comparison: Federer won Wimbledon for the first time in 2003, and then was eliminated in the fourth round of the US Open.
Nadal won the French Open for the first time in 2005, and then was eliminated in the second round of Wimbledon.
Djokovic won the Australian Open for the first time in 2008, and then was eliminated in the semi-finals of the French Open.
Countless professionals and veteran fans are very curious about this matter. Records have been broken and updated one after another, but this record has always remained rock solid.
So, is there a curse or shackle here that restricts male players?
If you say this, it will be ridiculous: how is it possible.
But think about it carefully, female players have accomplished such a brilliant feat more than once, and it has happened three times since the millennium. However, it was not until 2012 that male players had a "spark of hope". This is really too exaggerated.
Perhaps the “curse” theory isn’t so absurd after all.
At the beginning of last year, Wawrinka made his first breakthrough in his career and won the Australian Open. At that time, people were discussing:
Other players were too young and inexperienced when they won their first championship, so they were unable to handle the pressure and disputes well, which is why they failed to break the curse. However, Wawrinka does not have such shackles.
After all, Wawrinka is already 28 years old.
The pressure was overwhelming towards Wawrinka and reached its peak after he won the Monte Carlo Masters. Because this was a clay court Masters tournament, people had reason to have more expectations for Wawrinka's prospects at the French Open.
Expectations, doubts, curiosity, provocations, all kinds of opinions came pouring in. Before going to Paris, Wawrinka was generally considered the favorite to win the French Open, even surpassing Federer and Djokovic, and catching up with Nadal.
The result? First-round elimination.
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It was so shocking that the post-match press conference went haywire.
In a blink of an eye, a year has passed and the players have gathered in Melbourne again to compete for the Australian Open championship of the new year. Does everything that just happened look familiar?
Basically, everything that Wawrinka went through at the French Open last year has now been directly transferred to Gao Wen.
It is for this reason that Agassi has gone to great lengths to avoid any form of positive response.
But Agassi soon realized that if the reporters didn't get what they wanted, they would keep pestering him and the matter would definitely not end so easily.
It goes on and on, on and on... an infinite cycle, which means that the pressure on Gawain's shoulders will continue to accumulate.
What to do? In a flash, Agassi came up with a bold idea, and then he did it.
Djokovic is the champion, and who can argue with that? After all, Djokovic has won four titles at Melbourne Park so far, accounting for 57% of his seven Grand Slam titles so far.
Djokovic has tied Federer and Agassi's record of four titles, becoming the player with the most Australian Open titles in the Open Era, and is becoming the new generation of "King of Melbourne Park".
Now imagine the headlines in the news media: "Agassi: Djokovic is the champion."
"Gao Wen's coach thinks his chances of winning are slim."
"Agassi is optimistic about Djokovic winning the championship, but not his disciple."
"Agassi's pick, spoiler alert: it's not Gawain."
"A bucket of cold water, Agassi uses his own way to calm his disciples down."
And so on.
Social networks are sure to be abuzz again, but Agassi doesn't mind:
No matter what the media and netizens say, the pressure focused on Gao Wen's victory will be reduced. What they need least now is the "curse trouble".
(End of this chapter)