On June 10th, at 2 pm Paris time, the final game of the French Open this year was also the most important. The men's singles final was held at the Philippe Chatrier stadium.
At this time, the domestic time is nine o'clock in the evening. Although the time is slightly later, it is evening on a weekend plus since its Zhang Guan's game, there are still many spectators waiting in front of the TV and waiting to watch this game.
When Nadal entered the stadium, the audience immediately gave him warm applause. They used cheers to welcome the "king" of the French Open, and the red and yellow Spanish flag around the stadium was more conspicuous.
When Zhang Guan played, the applause and cheers were much smaller. Zhang Guan looked to the stands and found several five-star red flags in an instant, which made Zhang Guan feel calmer.
"Sure enough, Nadal is popular here." Zhang Guan can feel the gap between him and Nadal from the audience's voice.
Two years ago, 19-year-old Nadal participated in the French Open for the first time and defeated Federer in the semi-final. In the final, he defeated Argentine Mariano Puerta and won the first bid in his life. Throughout the championship, at that time, Nadal was hailed as "the son of the French Open". It can be said that this field is where Nadal became famous.
Nowadays, Nadal holds two French Open champions and comes to the field again. The son of the former French Open, the king of red clay today, came to the place where he was crowned, and the achievement of the "three consecutive championships" of the French Open seems to have been taken for granted.
The romantic French fans shouted passionately, igniting the entire stadium, heating the stadium, and the air was filled with suffocation before the game, and when the spectators endured their ability to reach the limit, the game finally started.
"Almost all the audience cheered for Nadal. Today's Philip Stadium has become Nadal's home court. Zhang Guan doesn't know if this will cause psychological problems for him as it is his first time in the French Open final. Pressure. But Zhang Guan has a lot of experience in major competitions. His psychological quality should be very strong! Okay, Zhang Guan brushes serve first!" The commentator's voice suddenly stopped, and two seconds later, Zhang Guan started the first serve of the game.
The tennis ball flew over the net and was touched out of bounds by Nadal.
"Serving and scoring! It seems that my previous worries were unnecessary. Zhang Guan was not affected by the atmosphere on the field!" the commentator said.
Next, Zhang Guan continued to serve, and after a three-shot hold, Zhang Guan forehanded a wide-range transfer and scored another point.
But for this point, Nadal did not rush to chase, but instead ran two tokens and stopped.
After all, this is the first game of the two sides. In the face of opponents such as Zhang Guan, Nadal, who was the receiver, did not intend to break in the first game, but still mainly used it to warm up, so there is no need to chase every ball. After all, tennis requires a lot of running, and a lot of large-scale movements need to be made in the game. If you don't warm up enough, it is still easy to get injured.
Zhang Guan also needs to warm up, although as a track and field athlete, especially the king of the sprint event, his body will certainly not warm up slowly, so the warm-up time is much less, he can enter the race faster.
In the first game, when the score reached 40-0, Nadal gradually began to find the state. After pulling the score to 40-15, he finally lost a point and Zhang Guan temporarily led 1-0.
In the second game of both sides, Nadal continued to pick up. Although he did not issue an ACE ball and did not score directly, his perfect forehand cooperated with the active offensive, it was relatively easy to win his own service game. 1-1 level.
After the two rounds, although the score of both sides was 1-1, both sides knew that the real match started. For the first two rounds, for both players, it can be said that it is a warm-up process, and it can also be said that it is a mutual process of temptation, and then, the real fierce confrontation officially began.
At the beginning of the third game, Zhang Guan preempted and an ACE ball took the lead, but then the second ball, Zhang Guan encountered strong resistance from Nadal.
Nadal did not choose a landing point that was very close to the edge. His direction of the shot was still very stable, but Nadal strengthened the rotation of the ball. The tennis ball with a strong up spin which bounced high after landing. While Zhang Guan forehanded back, he felt that it was so uncomfortable to recieve the ball.
"This ball is so difficult to control!" Zhang Guan still underestimated the rotation of Nadal's forehand, then the return of the ball was slightly shorter, and Nadal caught the opportunity to counterattack.
This is Nadal's forehand, which always makes his opponent uncomfortable. Even if the speed is not fast, even if there is no tricky landing point, it will carry the strongest rotation in the world.
Zhang Guan saw Nadal's forehand swing and the tennis ball flew directly to his's backhand. Nadal's quality of the ball was very good. For Nadal, who used his left hand to shoot, it was very comfortable to use his forehand to attack Zhang Guan's backhand.
"The rotation is still very strong!" Zhang Guan has already felt this. This ball was hit using both hands, and Zhang Guan is a one-handed backhand hit. It is a loss of strength. If you choose the conventional method of receiving the ball, it is easy to make mistakes, so for Zhang Guan, there was simply a backlash, a backhand cutting the ball, and hitting it back across the net.
"Backhand cutting! Zhang Guan used his backhand cutting, his choice is the same as Federer." Nadal's heart was a joy, this was the result he wanted the most.
Before Nadal and Federer played against each other, Nadal only used his forehand to attack Federer's backhand, Federer would also make the same choice, using backhand cutting, which seemed to be a very reasonable response. But in the clay court, facing Federer's backhand cutting, Nadal can always find a forehand pressure to create more offensive opportunities.
So at this time, Nadal was quite familiar with this backhand cutting. He directly chose to press forward continuously and scored this point, turning the score of the third game to 15-15.
...
"My backhand happened to match Nadal's forehand. It was too bad to play this way!" Zhang Guan thought for a while and decided to rely on his forehand to deal with Nadal.
This time, Zhang Guan chose to return with a forehand after serving, and the attack was also towards Nadal's backhand.
Nadal held the racket with both hands and returned the ball to Zhang Guan. This ball was not fast and the landing point was not deep, but from these two points, it was a good catch.
However, Zhang Guan remembered the coach's warning that Nadal's backhand still had a strong spin, so even if the ball did not fall deep enough, it seemed that it was easy to catch the ball, and Zhang Guan still treated it carefully.
Sure enough, Nadal's backhand still had a strong spin. When the ball landed, the height of the bounce allowed Zhang Guan to confirm this.
"Don't think that only you can hit the ball with a high spin!" Zhang Guan struck vigorously, this time, he was also prepared to use the topspin to deal with Nadal.
The tennis ball leaped across the net, and Nadal moved quickly to the place where the ball was received.
At the next moment, the tennis ball bounced high and rushed directly towards the position above Nadal's head.
"Topspin, such a strong topspin!" Nadal exclaimed.