tennis giant

Chapter 303 No Retreat

Luck, in competitive sports, of course exists.

Just like drawing lots, if you are lucky, you may be placed in a relatively weak group, but if you are unlucky, you may enter the death group.

But it is also obvious that most of this so-called luck is aimed at the weak, and relying solely on luck cannot get you to the end. In the end, you still have to rely on your own strength to defeat your opponents and win the game. .

And in the tennis match, it is basically the same. Maybe some players can rely on luck to make him go further, but when the game reaches the top 8 or top 4, this luck is not easy to use. Because the schedule has reached this stage, there are already no weak players.

What's more, the event An Sheng participated in this time is the ATP500 Tournament. In such a high-level professional event, it is a small probability event to win two consecutive rounds of opponents.

Of course, An Sheng didn't expect it at all. He was not that naive to be able to go on like this.

And in this third round of the main match, he really encountered a strong opponent, a player that he had to pay attention to, and even affected his self-confidence to a certain extent, because the opponent was a Grand Slam champion Winner.

He is Fognini from Italy.

However, Ansheng has not completely lost confidence, because although Fognini is a Grand Slam champion, his Grand Slam championship comes from men's doubles events, not singles.

There is no doubt that in tennis, there is still a huge difference between singles and doubles, and doubles requires a lot of emphasis on "coordination", not just strength.

Therefore, Fognini's hard power may not be really that strong, at least An Sheng thinks that he can fight against it.

In addition, there is another very important point. As far as Anson knows, all the singles titles Fognini has won so far have all come from clay courts, including the only time he reached the top 8 of a Grand Slam tournament, that is At the French Open.

That is to say, in singles, Fognini is a player who is very biased towards clay courts.

But as far as this point is concerned, it will make An Sheng feel more confident, because he knows very well that if he wants to perform better on the clay court, his players should have two qualities.

The first trait is excellent spinning technique and pace movement, while the second point is tough play tactics and very tenacious will quality.

In fact, it is conforming to the characteristics of clay and paying more attention to defense and multi-shot confrontation.

And this is obviously beneficial to An Sheng, who is slightly weaker. In any case, it at least gives him a chance to resist.

Of course, all of this depends on how strong this Fognini is.

At 2 pm on February 22, the quarter-final match between Anson and Fognini officially began.

"Oh!"

Fognini took the lead in serving, and his serving level was relatively average, but as a male player, his ball speed still reached more than 190 kilometers per hour.

However, this is a clay court, so the threat of serving is not too great, which allows Ansheng to complete the return of serve relatively safely.

Afterwards, Fognini started his follow-up offensive, and sure enough, he is a player who is better at using topspin.

Its attack is not violent, even a little slow, but correspondingly, the quality of its shots is relatively high, and the impact is very deep.

This made his offensive, although not that big of a threat, but it had a strong defensive system, or, to a large extent, limited An Sheng's ability to counterattack.

For example, for this ball, Fognini took five or six shots in a row without rushing, and the angle was not too wide. An Sheng was able to complete the return, but he was pulled back and got involved. There is no suitable counterattack opportunity.

At the same time, this roughly proves that in terms of hard power, Fognini is indeed slightly stronger than An Sheng, whether it is physical fitness or technology.

Especially in terms of pace and movement, he is only 1 meters tall, and he has obvious advantages.

In the end, this ball, after being involved in multiple shots, allowed Fognini to accumulate a large enough advantage to win with one blow.

And on the next ball, Fognini showed another characteristic of him.

"Oh!"

In this serve, Fognini made some changes, the force was obviously stronger, and it succeeded.

This was somewhat beyond An Sheng's expectations. Although his concentration was very concentrated, Fognini's changes still affected the quality of his return, making his return a bit high and the ball speed relatively slow. .

There was no suspense. Faced with such a good opportunity, Fognini immediately took a strong attack and hit a powerful forehand.

And An Sheng chased desperately, and managed to rescue him through skillful "sliding steps", but when he looked at the opposite side, he gave up immediately.

Because he had already seen that Fognini appeared in front of the net, and hit a very beautiful and precise volley, and got this point without any suspense.

This is another characteristic of Fognini. As a doubles player, he has a strong ability to volley in front of the net, and his reaction speed is super fast, and the success rate of volleys is very high.

At this time, An Sheng's expression was very serious. It was obvious that he had encountered a lot of trouble.

In the subsequent games, the situation was really controlled by Fognini. Even if An Sheng tried various methods, it was difficult to change this situation.

Therefore, Fognini won the first set relatively smoothly.

But then again, in the face of Fognini, is An Sheng really powerless to resist?Obviously not!
Judging from the current situation, Fognini's strength is indeed stronger than him, but the gap between the two sides is actually not that big, and An Sheng is only slightly behind.

That being the case, why didn't he exert his strength, but let Fognini win so easily?

In fact, An Sheng really didn't fully exert his strength, but he didn't do nothing. On the contrary, he actually did a lot of things.

To sum up, there are mainly two points.

The first point is to test Fognini's basic strength and the change of the ball path. The second point, which is more important, is to confirm whether Fognini has other "unique skills".

So, An Sheng is not waiting to die now, nor is he unwilling to exert strength, but he just uses the first set of the game to prepare for exerting strength when he feels that the situation is unfavorable and it is difficult to recover.

And when the game came to the second set, An Sheng had no way out, and no matter whether he was ready or not, he had to do his best.

(End of this chapter)