Regarding this match, because of the sudden incident, Gao Wen didn't have time to carefully study Kei Nishikori's recent game tapes, but it doesn't mean that Sampras and Gao Wen were not prepared—
Gao Wen and Dimitrov are two substitutes who stay in London and have no other tasks. Their daily task is to watch the games. All the group matches so far have been watched live.
Therefore, even if you don't study the game video, you are definitely not ignorant.
A very noteworthy detail is:
Last week in Paris, Kei Nishikori lost to Djokovic; this week in London, Kei Nishikori lost to Federer, all have one thing in common.
"6:3", "6:2".
The scores of the two games were exactly the same.
Against Djokovic, Kei Nishikori broke serve only once in the whole game, wasting three break points; against Federer, Kei Nishikori got three break points in the whole game, but all wasted and failed to break serve.
And, more than that, in London this week, Nishikori wasted four of eight break points and broke serve four times in his win over Murray.
At the same time, in these three games, Kei Nishikori sent out more than seven break points and lost multiple serve games without exception.
From the perspective of Kei Nishikori's serve, it is a "standard ending", but from the perspective of Kei Nishikori's break success rate, it has dropped significantly compared to the US Open.
The reason is very intuitive.
On indoor hard courts, Kei Nishikori consciously adjusted his style of play to increase his offensiveness, because indoor hard courts have very fast ball speeds, leaving too little time for defense and defensive counterattacks, and games often still need to be played through offense. fight for victory.
Kei Nishikori is not good at active force, so he uses rhythm control to compress the return space, and further hits the rebound and rising point to force the opponent to fall into a passive position. Then, in the case of indoor hard courts with low bounce and short reaction time, Uncontrollable uncertainties will increase.
Naturally, the error rate will also increase.
Especially in terms of key points, Kei Nishikori's control of mistakes is not good, and he should still be looking for the rhythm and feel of indoor hard court offense.
This is also a problem that Kei Nishikori must face in his own style of play. The weakness of absolute strength needs to be compensated by other techniques, and the indoor hard court season can see intuitive results, and the success rate of breaks has declined.
Generally speaking, it is always difficult to face Federer with the style of "playing fast with fast", because Federer himself is very good at playing fast with fast, and it is difficult to be dragged down; In the course of the ball, the control of the rhythm is also unique in the professional tennis world.
Therefore, Kei Nishikori lost directly to Federer.
Relatively speaking, for Djokovic, Murray, Gao Wen, etc., Kei Nishikori can have some upper hand, because they are not players of absolute strength or absolute speed, they often need time to plan, and also Offensive and defensive transitions are required, and Kei Nishikori can always compress the opponent's return time, and then disrupt the time and space for thinking and layout.
So, facing Djokovic and Murray, Kei Nishikori won one and lost one.
Today, against Kowain, Nishikori does have a slight advantage in terms of playing style and type.
So, how should Gao Wen respond?
Although Gawain is neither Djokovic nor Federer, Gawain has his own way of coping, not to mention, this is the second time they have played against each other:
Some things still need to be re-adapted, even with the same opponent, every game and every game is different; but some things, you don't need to.
The mind is already working quickly.
Therefore, when the game started, from the first point, Gao Wen's concentration was already immersed in the game, and he immediately entered the competitive state.
In the opening game, Gao Wen played steadily in his own serve.
Logically speaking, the O2 court is an indoor hard court, and the ball speed should be faster, but in fact, the ball speed of the O2 court is slightly slower than the Arthur-Ashe court, but the bounce height is also slightly lower, so that the O2 court is very difficult to control. The requirements for power are higher, and the sparks and flints need to be more delicate and decisive.
It is precisely because of this that in the first two games of Kei Nishikori at the O2 stadium, he was more aggressive in grabbing spots. The entire batting rhythm was very intensive and very fast, and he even risked the decline in the quality of the batting and the deviation of the return point. Risk, bring up the whole rhythm as much as possible, like a tornado.
Against Kei Nishikori, Sampras and Gao Wen worked out a tactic together:
Serve, decelerate and reduce force, increase topspin, so as to approach the serve on the clay court, and limit Kei Nishikori's attack.
First of all, Kei Nishikori is relatively short, so once the height of the tennis ball rebounds above the shoulders, his swing will be very uncomfortable.
Secondly, Kei Nishikori's strength is relatively weak, and his ability to actively exert force is not enough, but he is proficient in leveraging force, and his performance in the face of a strong serve is even better.
Again, even in the face of Federer, Kei Nishikori grabbed the serve very fiercely, mainly because he hoped to bring the rhythm up through the shot of receiving the serve.
Therefore, the tactics tailor-made for Kei Nishikori came out.
If Gao Wen chooses to serve from the inner corner or the outer corner, he will reduce the force and slow down, and pull up the topspin, forcing Kei Nishikori to catch the ball in an awkward position, limiting Kei Nishikori's rush to serve.
If Gao Wen chooses to serve from close quarters, then increase the speed and squeeze Kei Nishikori's swing as much as possible with a flat serve, forcing him to be unable to launch a counterattack.
The entire serving tactic is very clear and clear, and then adjusted according to the actual situation as the game progressed, disrupting Kei Nishikori's tactical deployment.
Perhaps, Gao Wen is not a cannon player, but many people ignore one point. In fact, Gao Wen's serve control is very good, with a variety of spin, landing and power.
This point on the game point is the most representative.
Second district, first serve, outside corner.
170 kilometers per hour.
Gao Wen mainly focused on control and rotation, with a very shallow landing point and strong top spin. After landing, he bounced high. Kei Nishikori’s prediction was not in place, and his steps were a little slower. .
Kei Nishikori was still trying to catch the serve, even though his hitting action was awkward, he tried his best to hit a flat shot, and then tried his best to control the landing point of the return ball in the deep area, taking the risk of going out of bounds directly, trying to Suppressing Gao Wen's next offensive attack.
But ~www.mtlnovel.com~ Gao Wen is already mentally prepared for this.
Small steps, continuous small step adjustment.
Dazzling footsteps were like lingering microsteps, and most importantly, Gao Wen took half a step sideways to get out of the way, ensuring that his forehand could fully swing the racket, and accurately predicted that Kei Nishikori's return ball would be in the middle. line.
One side, one wave.
At the moment of the shot, the body presses forward and the footsteps are backward, but the body presses up together with the swing movement, using the strength of the body to complete the push, and gently pushes the wrist in the direction of the small diagonal line.
Hit fast, play fast.
Hit a bouncing ball almost at the foot, but the speed and connection of the ball have been fully improved, and the tennis ball has gone straight out.
boom!
It disappeared in a blink of an eye.
Forehand slash winning point, "love-game", easily secured serve, only took 93 seconds.