Thomas Haas spent nearly two hours ending his third round of the game. Instead of continuing to play at Vodafone Stadium, he quickly returned to his residence and began to prepare for the next game. According to the arrangement of the Australian Open, the contest between Haas and Zhang Guan will be held in the second game of the next morning.
Time is very tight for Haas, he has only one day to prepare, so he can't wait to find a video of Zhang Guan's game against Nalbandian and watch it carefully.
"Right-handed backhand, just like me! It looks like Zhang Guan's backhand strength is very strong. He can almost compete with the backhand of Nalbandian. If I fight backhand, I don't think I will have an advantage. Ah, then don't fight backhand with him."
Haas continued to watch, saw Zhang Guan serve on to the net, and then saw Zhang Guan also chose to surf the net when receiving the ball.
"This is the pre-net play. How can such a young player use the pre-net play? This style of play was the most popular when I was a kid. Isn't it eliminated by now? If the player was older than 30, I can still understand if he plays in front of the net, but Zhang Guan is less than twenty years old. How can I use this 20 years ago? Isn't the level of tennis in Asia still at the second level? Ten years ago?"
Harvey shook his head, "It's impossible. There are also many excellent tennis players in Asian countries. Japan, Thailand, and South Korea all have Grand Slam players. Several people in China participate in women's singles and women's doubles. Zhang Guan's girlfriend is Sharapova, so Zhang Guan must have known that the play style of playing in front of the net has already been eliminated. So then did Zhang Guan deliberately learned this play in front of the net!"
Haas thought of this and suddenly laughed, "It's interesting. He didn't have to learn the most practical bottom line now. Instead, he went to learn the pre-net play that has been eliminated by the times. This game is really impressive!"
Twenty years ago, there were a variety of reasons for the popularity of netplay. The first is the tennis equipment. The materials of the racket in that era are different from those of the present, so even the peak Federer or Nadal cannot play with that kind of high-intensity rotating ball. With the advancement of technology, the materials and production technology of rackets and tennis have made great progress, making the difficulty of playing the bottom line much lower.
The second is the reason for the ground. The plastic materials on the hard ground have made great progress with the development of science and technology, and the elasticity is getting better and better; the grass field has gradually cultivated varieties of grass suitable for playing tennis; even for red clay, the site and the application of composite materials make the site construction drainage system simpler, and the red clay paving is much harder than before.
Also, the continuous development and progress of tennis technique, the high requirements for players in front of the net, etc., eventually made the play style of playing in front of the net gradually be eliminated by the times, and the bottom line began to become popular.
Players within the age group of Haas were similar to each other when they were learning tennis, it was the era of the king Sampras, playing before the net is the mainstream, so they also have a certain understanding of playing before the net. So Haas quickly developed a set of tactics to deal with Zhang Guanwang's pre-net play.
"Nalbandian's spin is more moderate, so opponents playing in front of the net will be more strenuous. Although my backhand is not as strong as Nalbandian, the technique of using the spin is still superior. In tomorrow's game, we must strengthen the rotation of the ball. Also, we must pay attention to the arc of the ball, don't allow him to easily surf the net."
"Additionally, young players are often used to playing in the wind, especially for the new tennis players who don't have enough experience in the game. Patience and resilience are insufficient. I need to keep the game time longer. The longer the game time, the better for me. It should be more favorable."
...
On the eighth day of the Australian Open, still at Vodafone Stadium, Zhang Guan welcomed his fourth-round opponent, the 12th seed of the tournament, German Thomas Haas.
The game between Zhang Guan and Haas was scheduled for the second game. Vodafone Stadium's first game today was the women's singles Chuck Vitazer against Schneider. The game was going very fast, and Chuck Vitazer only spent more than seventy minutes, and she defeated Schneider 2-0.
Next is the contest between Zhang Guan and Haas. This game is also regarded as the highlight of Vodafone Stadium today.
As a wild card player, Zhang Guan can successfully reach the fourth round of the men's singles for the first time in a professional tennis match. He can be said to be the biggest dark horse of the current Australian Open. Faced with dark horseplayers, people often have two attitudes, one is that the dark horseplayers will be eliminated immediately, and the other is to hope that the dark horseplayers will show a miracle.
Among the fans of Vodafone Stadium today, the latter needs more. When Zhang Guan walks out of the player channel, he gets applause and cheers no weaker than Haas.
"The familiar applause and cheers are back! Competitive sports are so realistic!" Zhang Guan sighed with emotion in his heart. Six days ago, when he first appeared on this court as a professional tennis player, it was full of boos, he was a "public enemy", and after these six days, Zhang Guan used three victories to conquer the audience, he has been able to enjoy the treatment of seed players in this venue.
After a short warm-up between the two sides, the game started and Zhang Guan took the lead in serving.
Zhang Guan looked at the position of Haas and felt that this ball would be better for attacking Haas's forehand, so he aimed the ball's landing point at the position of Haas' forehand.
And Haas is also paying attention to Zhang Guan's serve.
"Is it going to serve on to the net? It may also be a vigorous draw! This is after all the first ball in this game. Zhang Guan can fight for it. The possibility of using a draw to serve should be greater." Hassler thought.
Tossing, swinging, and hitting, Zhang Guan directly used a flat shot to serve. The tennis ball flew out with a whizz.
"This ball is so fast!" Although Haas learned that Zhang Guan was a "heavy gunner" in the video as early as the first game, he had already prepared for it, but when he encountered it in the game, he still couldn't help but sigh.
At the same time, Haas was ready to catch the ball, but at the moment when he was about to move, Haas found that the ball was about to fall out of bounds.
"This ball is going out of bounds, as expected, Zhang Guan should be prepared to put pressure on me at the opening, so the goal of this ball is more limited." Haas just shook his body and didn't catch the ball.
At the next moment, the ball bounced on the ground and then bounced out, but Haas felt that the ball seemed to have a little bit of pressure.
"It seems that the line is being pressed, and it seems that the line is not pressed. Is there any line? Is this ball too fast to see clearly." Haas hesitated and turned his attention to the line referee, waiting for the referee's decision.
"OUT!" The line referee has called out.
"Hoo!" Haas breathed a sigh of relief, and the ball was like an out-of-bounds ball as he judged.
However, Zhang Guan raised his hand at this time and said to the head referee, "I want to challenge!"