tennis giant

Chapter 326 A Strong Opponent

After winning against Sock, An Sheng breathed a sigh of relief.

As for this game, he actually has a lot of feelings, mainly because in terms of strength and mentality, he entered a misunderstanding before, and his judgment and positioning were not accurate enough.

To put it simply, because of the previous achievements, An Sheng subconsciously improved himself, but in fact, in terms of hard power, he is still in the middle and lower 80s.

Even if his mental attributes have improved his competitiveness to a certain extent, it still cannot completely change the fact that he lacks hard power.

From this, it can be inferred that unless he encounters an opponent like Zheng Hyun who is completely suppressed by him in all aspects, otherwise, as long as he encounters an opponent ranked in the top 80 in the world, or whose strength exceeds the [-]th stage Players are more difficult to beat, and they are not sure of winning.

Therefore, in terms of mentality, he must put himself in the right place, never underestimate his opponents, and don't belittle himself, find a suitable position, face the game, and face his opponents squarely.

When he returned to the arena, An Sheng soon ushered in his next opponent. Like Sock, he was also a native American player, and he was Johnson.Its ATP ranking is currently ranked 44th, and it is also the No. 7 seed in this tournament.

It is worth noting that in the previous round, Johnson defeated Monaco, the top seed in this tournament, so that he could meet Anson in the semi-finals.

However, Monaco's ranking is actually not very high, so it may be a bit surprising to lose to Johnson, but it can't be regarded as an upset.

As for Johnson, Ansheng didn't know a lot of information, but there was one thing that made him curious and interested.

That is, the racket used by Johnson is a very special square racket. Its shape is square, which is different from the conventional ellipse.

This is indeed very unique, because in today's professional tennis world, players who use this kind of release racket are really rare, almost none.

Of course, existence is reasonable. Its square racket has a great advantage, that is, its hitting "sweet spot" is larger than that of conventional rackets.

According to Johnson himself, he chose this unique square racket because he had a soft spot for this.

When the match between the two sides officially started, An Sheng was surprised to find that the uniqueness of Johnson was not only in his racket.

More importantly, on this clay court, Johnson adopted an offensive style of play.

This is really rare. After all, the inhibitory effect of clay courts on offense is obvious. Many players, even if they used to play offensively before, have to make adjustments after coming to clay courts.

What makes An Sheng wary is that Johnson, who uses an offensive style of play, was able to reach the semifinals and continuously defeat strong opponents. So what did he rely on?

In the next game, An Sheng got the answer, but this answer also made him very helpless.

"Oh!"

An Sheng took the lead to serve, and Johnson immediately completed the return, and both sides were relatively safe.

After that, An Sheng deliberately used the topspin ball because of the previous lesson, instead of rushing to launch a strong attack.

This point, as mentioned just now, in order to adapt more to the clay court, Ansheng had to adjust his technical and tactical play.

But to An Sheng's surprise, facing his good-quality topspin, Johnson actually took a strong counterattack.

However, this time, he didn't make it, but his choice was still very surprising, and it also made An Sheng feel weird.

In the next few shots, An Sheng naturally played more safely, but Johnson was obviously emphasizing offense, and he played very resolutely. Even if the success rate was not high, he still persisted.

At this time, Johnson has not yet shown his strength, but when the right to serve comes to him, the situation is very different.

"Oh!"

Johnson's serve is of very high quality, and may even be a little better than Anson's.

Fortunately, An Sheng's return ability is not bad, coupled with his ability to predict, he can still handle it.

But at the moment when An Sheng finished receiving the serve and turned his gaze back to the opposite side, he was taken aback because he saw that Johnson on the opposite side actually chose to serve and go directly to the net.

You know, serving to the net is a very old style of play, and it is no longer applicable in today's professional tennis world.

Although it is okay to use it occasionally, but if it is used as the main style of play, under normal circumstances, its effect is not good.

But now, Johnson is using the serve to hit the net, and he is very decisive without any hesitation.

Immediately afterwards, he also completed an air volley very handsomely, and then successfully scored the winning point.

"Oh!"

In the next ball, there is no doubt that An Sheng was vigilant. In other words, Johnson's way of playing the net had already put a certain amount of pressure on him, so he had to be more cautious when receiving the serve.

However, Anson later discovered that this time, Johnson did not serve directly to the net.

But in the next shot, An Sheng was caught off guard by the opponent again, because Johnson used his forehand to forcefully hit a super-violent forceful flat blow.

The speed of the ball is too fast, even on clay, it is still too fast, so fast that An Sheng has no time to react.

"Oh!"

Once again, An Sheng tightened his heart, and he was already very cautious no matter whether it was receiving or returning the ball, and he dared not be careless in the slightest.

However, Johnson, who has the right to serve, can still take advantage of the little advantage brought to him by serving, and play a strong attack, and he is very decisive. opportunity for counterattack.

More importantly, Johnson's offensive success rate is still very high.

In this way, even if An Sheng adopted a firm defensive strategy, coupled with the role of the clay court, he still could not stop Johnson's powerful offensive.

In such a situation, An Sheng lost the first set, and he didn't have any temper yet, because the opponent really played very well, so he had nothing to say.

And when the game came to the second set, for An Sheng, not only did the situation not get better, but it got worse and worse. The reason was that Johnson's performance was really flawless.

His offense is decisive and powerful, each shot is of extremely high quality, and the success rate is still very high.

In fact, An Sheng also knows that this is definitely not Johnson's regular state. He doesn't believe that Johnson can have such an explosive offensive ability in a regular state.

But I have to say that in this game, Johansen's performance was so strong.

In the end, Ansheng tried his best but could not resolve Johnson's strong attack, so he had no choice but to accept the defeat.

Fortunately, his mentality is still good. Even, when he thinks back, when he won the Rio Open and the Sao Paulo Open, wasn't his state also unconventional?

Therefore, this may be a regular phenomenon in the ATP Tournament. Except for a few super-top players, everyone's strength is actually not too different. Only those players who are in full condition can stand out and win the championship.

(End of this chapter)