Restart button (Part 2)
With the first stage of the competition fast approaching, time was tight and tasks were heavy. In addition, the club's training was casual and management was lax. Many players probably didn't even know each other's names, let alone have good teamwork. Zhou Zeyu didn't have high expectations for this season's competition. He just wanted to avoid losing too badly and embarrassing himself.
In fact, she wasn't the only one who thought this way; what's even more terrifying is that the club's higher-ups also felt the same way.
Objectively speaking, those big bosses are actually quite easygoing. Since they are not professional sportsmen, they are incredibly open-minded about the outcome of the game. Their pre-game pep talk is just to smile and tell everyone to have fun and play with sportsmanship, without mentioning any motivational speeches or inspirational quotes.
For Zhou Zeyu, who had survived for so long in a highly competitive, cutthroat environment, this was a bit hard to understand. However, the relaxed environment greatly comforted her. With no rigid goals or requirements above her, she felt refreshed and invigorated.
When people are in a good mood, they are in high spirits, and even the way she looks at Lee Sun-hee is no longer so sarcastic. This guy has been training her even harder than she has been lately, basically spending all his time at the training base, and avoiding any communication unless absolutely necessary.
Zhou Zeyu was someone who couldn't handle stimulation, and seeing that she was getting serious, he dared not slack off. The two of them seemed to be competing with each other, and whenever they were drenched in sweat, they would glance at each other out of the corner of their eyes. When they saw the other gritting their teeth and continuing, they would immediately start practicing more.
While it's unclear whether such comparisons are childish, the results are at least evident.
During their final doubles practice session before the competition, both players were much more comfortable with each other than at the beginning, and they even seemed to have developed a kind of tacit understanding in their agile teamwork. However, neither Lee Sun-hee nor Zhou Zeyu would admit to this.
During the final routine check-in before the competition, Coach Xu listened to her words and couldn't help but sigh over the phone, "See? I told you long ago that training seriously and calmly is very helpful."
"I didn't expect you to be so self-disciplined when I wasn't watching you. It seems you've really grown up."
After finishing his final training session, Zhou Zeyu lay on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. He hummed contentedly, "Of course, I have Li Shanxi right next to me. How could I lose to her?"
After saying that, she belatedly realized that the two of them were now teammates, and there was no question of defeat or defeat anymore. She waved her hand casually, indicating that it was not important: "Why don't you come watch my match tomorrow? It's not far from Nanjing."
Coach Xu laughed twice: "You want me to skip work? Your opponents are not even as good as your club, what are you afraid of? With your ability, as long as you don't underestimate your opponents, you can win."
Zhou Zeyi said, touched, "Do you trust me that much? Is it because you have a 'disciple filter' on me? Can you be more objective?"
Upon hearing this, Coach Xu gave a very objective and fair assessment: "It's not because you're very strong, but because your opponent was really too weak. It's not surprising that you won. If you had lost, you should have gone home and gone to bed early."
"Hey, you'd better not be objective, just keep up your filter on me."
The master and apprentice chatted for a while longer, and just as Zhou Zeyu was about to hang up and go to sleep when he ran out of things to say, he heard Coach Xu speak up again.
"What do you plan to do if you run into Cen Zheng in a future match?"
Zhou Zeyi feigned composure: "Oh? She joined a club? Which one?"
Coach Xu scoffed, "Don't play dumb here. You're much more informed about her than I am. Shouldn't you have known this already?"
Although she was exposed, she wasn't embarrassed at all. She scratched her head and chuckled twice, but the image of Cen Zheng standing on the other side of the pool table flashed through her mind, and she immediately stopped laughing.
"I don't know, we'll deal with whatever comes our way," Zhou Zeyu said honestly. "Do you think I can beat her right now?"
"Objectively speaking?"
"Objectively speaking."
"Get to the point." Zhou Zeyu interrupted this long preface without any mercy.
"You two are evenly matched."
Zhou Zeyu resisted the urge to roll her eyes and gritted her teeth to admit that it seemed to be true. Although the truth was indeed unpleasant to hear, it really was. She would just have to listen to some polite words to cheer herself up before the next competition.
However, as if realizing that his words were too blunt and not very friendly to someone who would be on the field the moment he opened his eyes the next day, Coach Xu cleared his throat and changed to a gentler tone in a very affected manner, trying to make amends without much credibility.
"However, given that the current batch of young players are all just so-so, even though you're definitely not at your peak anymore, beating them shouldn't be a big problem. They're all just a bunch of greenhorns, you don't even need to go all out. Your extensive experience in major competitions is enough to give them a run for their money."
Zhou Zeyu nodded, completely ignoring his words, and casually said, "Coach Xu, you once said yourself that if you want to praise someone for having a lot of experience in major competitions, then there's really nothing more to praise."
"Then just make do with what I'm saying." The old man chuckled a few times. "Alright, go to sleep early, stop thinking about all that, focus on the game, winning or losing doesn't matter."
Zhou Zeyu nodded, closed his eyes, hung up the phone, tossed the phone aside, wrapped himself in the blanket, and went to sleep.
She's not under as much pressure as before. At least now, no one has high hopes for her, and no one is holding meetings to criticize her repeatedly. Putting everything else aside, the environment is quite relaxed now.
If you think about it carefully, it seems that she hasn't experienced this kind of "it doesn't matter whether you win or lose" life since she joined the provincial team. As an athlete in competitive sports, no one can put winning or losing aside, but sometimes being too competitive can't bring victory. She understood this a long time ago.
So whatever, everything's a mess this season anyway, it'll probably take a while before things get back on track, we'll see when that happens.
It's rare to have a good night's sleep.
However, whether it's true that playing as one pleases sometimes brings divine assistance, or it's really as Coach Xu said, that the opponent was too weak, no one, including Zhou Zeyu, expected to win so easily on the second day of the competition.
According to Lee Sun-hee, they completely pinned the other party to the ground and beat them.
Since the participating clubs play a double round-robin tournament, it's not hard to predict that they will win away games after easily securing victory at home.
Thus, Zhou Zeyu's first match of the new season ended in a way that was surprisingly simple.
While the result wasn't entirely unexpected, it was still somewhat surprising. She had thought it would be a tough match, given that she hadn't played in a competition for far too long, her tactics and skills might be outdated, and her stamina was less than a fifth of that of the younger players... But she still won, and with remarkable ease.
Before Zhou Zeyu was an outsider, she didn't think much of it. But after playing against those newcomers in real matches a few times, she realized that Coach Xu's words were surprisingly correct. As a survivor who had fought her way out of thousands of geniuses back then, she suddenly realized that the current batch of players were generally not very strong.
To put it bluntly, they're all pretty weak.
At least back then, let alone competing in such a national-level competition, even the selection competitions within the Youth Palace were fiercely contested. There was never a situation where an experienced player could overpower a newcomer. After all, a newborn calf is not afraid of a tiger. Zhou Zeyu defeated the World Track and Field Championships champion when she was only fourteen years old.
Now, it's no longer a question of whether a newborn calf is afraid of a tiger.
Seeing this situation, Zhou Zeyu felt a mix of emotions. She had always heard Fang Xiaocan say that the team was facing a talent shortage, but she didn't have a clear idea of it until now. She realized that the problem was much more serious than she had imagined. One of her opponents today was even a young man who had been selected for the national team.
That's absurd. If that guy's ability is good enough to get into the national team, then Zhou Zeyu, who's disabled, can still try to prepare for the Olympics.
Although the victory was not hard-won, but rather too easy to obtain, there is no doubt that for Zhou Zeyu, who had been recuperating from injury and living in seclusion for more than a year and was almost a semi-professional, the high-intensity competition schedule for several consecutive days still had a certain impact on his physical fitness.
At her stage, techniques and methods become secondary, because experienced athletes can switch playing styles at any time on the court. She was also surprised to find that during her absence, the playing styles in China had not changed much. Her moves were not only usable, but also very effective.
So what worries her is her physical fitness.
In terms of physical fitness, Zhou Zeyu was actually in pretty good shape when he was at his peak. After all, he was urged to run three kilometers every day, and he would be dragged to training camps during holidays and good days. He would run around and jump around without even running. However, you can't slack off on this. Once you stop, you'll fall into a deep slump.
In short, she can't run anymore.
This was not something she could decide. After all, Zhou Zeyu had a time bomb strapped to her right knee. In fact, she had suspected many times that her knee was damaged by running back then, otherwise it wouldn't be in such a terrible state.
Now, needless to say, as long as she hasn't had her right leg amputated, it's unlikely that she can regain her peak physical strength through physical training.
So here's the problem: Coach Xu is such a jinx, Zhou Zeyu's next opponent is indeed Cen Zheng's club.
Zhou Zeyu lay on the ground of the training base, forcing a bitter smile.
Her skills might be passable enough to fool young people, but are you expecting her to use them to beat up Cen Zheng?
You might as well just get an amputation, haha.
But even so, she couldn't completely give up. The atmosphere in the club was very high after the first big win, and everyone was all smiles and ready to face the next opponent. Of course, she had no reason to back down.
Most importantly, the continuous heavy rain during the Spring Festival stopped, and the rare bright and beautiful weather of early spring followed. Thank goodness, her knees finally didn't need painkillers to get through the difficult time.
"Could this be a sign from heaven, urging me to prepare actively, and perhaps there's still a chance for a turnaround in the competition?" Zhou Zeyu's voice still carried a glimmer of hope.
Fang Xiaocan's words were very direct, almost exactly like Coach Xu's: "You shouldn't push yourself too hard. We all saw what happened when you pushed yourself to the limit last time. Don't do that again."
Zhou Zeyu scratched his head in frustration, now even the last glimmer of hope for self-deception was gone.
"Why am I so unlucky to run into Cen Zheng? I naively thought that after she retired, I would never have to be her opponent again."
A melodious sigh, almost a thousand turns of emotion, came from the phone receiver. Zhou Zeyu almost thought Fang Xiaocan was singing a folk song.
"It's really unbelievable how you just can't beat Cen Zheng."
Zhou Zeyi gave a dry laugh: "If I knew the answer to the question, my win rate against her over the years wouldn't have been eleven percent."
Fang Xiaocan pondered for a moment: "Don't you think your playing styles are very incompatible?"
Regarding the issue of playing style, Zhou Zeyu had considered it before, because she was indeed forced to change her playing style once. The previous playing style was not scientific and was not suitable for long-term development. She even sacrificed many matches to adapt to the new playing style.
The problem is that her eleven percent win rate against Cen Zheng was all before she changed her fighting style. In other words, she hasn't won against Cen Zheng even once since she changed her fighting style.
Zhou Zeyu herself had certainly thought about this issue, but the fact is that, apart from her extremely low win rate against Cen Zheng, her win rate against other opponents had significantly improved, especially against foreign players such as Lee Sun-hee, against whom she had almost never lost.
"Is it a problem with my playing style?" Zhou Zeyu sighed. "But the problem is, even if you asked me to use the old playing style from my youth, I couldn't use it now."
It's very simple, because that kind of playing style is entirely based on an incredibly healthy body, which she doesn't have now, and not only does she not have it, she will never have it again.
Thinking of this, Fang Xiaocan felt a pang of indescribable sadness. She chuckled awkwardly and quickly changed the subject.
"That's true, but don't back down. Just roll up your sleeves and get to work. The worst that can happen is you lose, what else can you do?"
Zhou Zeyu shook his head: "No, we have to work hard no matter what, and we can't let down the club's expectations and trust."
"Wow, you're so ideologically aware. You've already developed such deep feelings for your club in such a short time?"
"Of course not," Zhou Zeyu said frankly, "It's because they paid too much money, making me feel embarrassed to slack off."
Now it was Fang Xiaocan's turn to be silent. After a while, a burst of extremely bitter laughter rang out.
"How can you say that to a penniless wretch who hasn't been paid for six months? Zhou Zeyi, you're getting colder and colder. I will never forgive you."
Zhou Zeyi shrugged indifferently, smiled and comforted her for a while, then hung up the phone.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
