At about 6:00 a.m. Beijing time this morning, Zhang Shuai lost to American player Gauff in the fourth round of the US Open singles with two 5-7, missing the quarterfinals.
The game started at 3:40 a.m., and I set an alarm to get up early to watch the whole game, thinking it was one of the best games in the US Open this year, and the Arthur Ashe Stadium, which can accommodate 23,000 people, is also almost full. The center court, which is lined up in the US Open, starts at 3 p.m. on a local Sunday, which shows how much the US Open attaches to this match.
Zhang Shuai and Gao Fu did not live up to everyone's expectations, rewarding the local audience who paid for tickets with a very exciting game, and also making the Chinese fans who stayed up late to watch the game very addicted.
To be honest, Zhang Shuai's performance at this year's US Open was beyond my expectations. The 33-year-old has achieved excellent results in doubles over the past two years, once having the opportunity to reach the top of the doubles world number one. Zhang Shuai mainly partnered with Stosur in doubles in the first two years, but her partners this year have changed more frequently, and have participated in women's doubles matches with 13 players such as Shibahara Yingcai, Stother, Caroline, Gauff, Sanders, McNally, Maya, Mertens, Merrichar, Sigmund, Wang Xiyu, Kudmetova, Koschyk and so on.
Judging from Zhang Shuai's Weibo content and doubles partners on the field, she has a very good relationship in the tennis circle and has established a good personal relationship with many players, so she is jokingly called the "social flower" of the WTA by fans.
On the surface, Zhang Shuai fought with Gauff this morning, but privately the two were very close friends, and in Stuttgart in April this year, they also participated in the doubles competition together to win the runner-up.
What is more worth mentioning is that Zhang Shuai has had 7 opportunities to ascend to the world number one doubles after this year's French Open, and the person who finally made Zhang Shuai completely lose the opportunity to climb this year is her doubles partner in Stuttgart and her opponent in today's US Open singles match - Gauff.
After losing the last point, Zhang Shuai came to the net and hugged Gao Fu in a friendly way, and the two talked with a smile on their faces. After shaking hands with the referee, Zhang Shuai waved to the audience and left the stadium amid the applause of the audience.
However, the friendly interaction with the audience after the game does not mean that all the spectators can watch the game in a civilized and friendly manner. The audience of the US Open has always been noisy, and the US Open arena is also the noisiest of the four Grand Slams, and some people have commented that the noise is so noisy that it feels like entering a wet market.
At 4-4 in the first set and 15-15 innings, an audience member whistled twice inappropriately when Zhang Shuai served the ball, and she had to stop and stare in the direction of the exit whistle for about 5 seconds, and the referee also reminded the audience to keep quiet in time. At the end of the second set, there were children running in front of Zhang Shuai's serve, and Zhang Shuai had to stop again and wait for the children to stand still before resuming the game.
The most exciting point of the whole game came at the end of the set, Zhang Shuai moved his opponent at a large angle on the bottom line, Gao Fu stubbornly returned the ball to the opposite side in the left and right rush, and Zhang Shuai made a low-level mistake when intercepting in the second shot. This wonderful point is like the epitome of the whole game - Zhang Shuai played proactively, and Gauff's defense was even better. Gauff's high-quality shots, the multiple occurrences of good balls, the psychological impact of overcoming double errors in time, and the enthusiastic support of the home audience all contributed to the balance of victory in The final favor of Gauff.
From the perspective of technical performance, Gauff is also a better party. She dared to fight at key moments, the stability and aggression of the forehand were eye-catching, and the lucky blessing of the press ball were all reasons for Gauff's final victory.
Judging from the technical statistics after the game, Gauff is also a party that plays better and has a more calm mentality. Gao Fu had a total of 8 double mistakes, and several of them still made double mistakes in the key game at the end of the set, but after she issued the double mistakes, she still dared to send and fight as always, and there was no fear of hands and feet and the slightest retreat. Gauff's ratio of winning points and unforced errors was 33-25, and Zhang Shuai's was 26-29; Gauff's average speed of one or two shots is 156km and 140km/h, respectively, while Zhang Shuai's is 149km and 127km; Gao Fu's full running distance is 2858 meters, and Zhang Shuai's is 2761 meters.
If you sum up the whole game in one sentence, Zhang Shuai is defeated, Gao Fu is also worthy of this victory, and the two have joined forces to dedicate a high-level wonderful duel. The only regret is that if you can play the decider and still have such a high level of fierce confrontation in the third set, then this game definitely has a chance to be selected as one of the best games in the WTA.
After losing the match, Zhang Shuai once again missed the opportunity to reach the singles quarterfinals at the US Open, and she had previously reached the quarterfinals of singles at both the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and reached the round of 16 singles at the French Open, becoming the second Chinese player after Li Na to score the round of 16 singles in all four Grand Slams.
Before this match, Zhang Shuai said: "I also told the coach that day that I reached the third round of three Grand Slams this year and have won 6 games now. I thought I couldn't even win one, so I was so happy. ”
Some people think that how can you be happy after losing, and how can you come to the net and smile and hug and chat with your opponent? And now Zhang Shuai is undoubtedly much more mature than in the past. "Whenever I see a player backing off or sad because they've lost, I tell them that the next game will be better. You see how bad my grades were when I started, no one was worse than me, even the first place in a certain record (note: 14 consecutive Grand Slam round trips). You are still young, you should continue to persevere and work hard! ”
When Zhang Shuai said that others were young, others also thought that 33-year-old Zhang Shuai was equally young. During Wimbledon this year, Zhang Shuai was mistaken by the staff for a young player when he went to the stadium to train. "During the second week of Wimbledon training, I wanted to take a basket and the staff said, 'I'm sorry, we can't let the young players take the basket... Look, I may look younger than I thought! ”
After losing to Gao Fu, who was 15 years younger than himself, Zhang Shuai only rested for more than an hour before changing to the big stand to participate in the mixed doubles match, and it took only 58 minutes to sweep the opponent 6-4 6-2 and reach the mixed doubles quarterfinals. At 0:30 Beijing time tomorrow, Zhang Shuai will partner Koschyuk to compete in the third round of the women's doubles and impact the women's doubles quarterfinals.
In fact, zhang Shuai has achieved good results in the US Open this year, and the Chinese tennis team has a surprising collective outbreak at the US Open this year. In addition to Zhang Shuai, there are also Zheng Qinwen, Wang Xiyu and Yuan Yue breaking into the third round of women's singles, which is the first time in the history of the Chinese women's tennis that four players have reached the third round of the Grand Slam at the same time. In addition, Wu Yiyu also broke into the third round of singles, creating the history of Chinese mainland men's net.
WTA official micro and official blog use "New Year" to describe the amazing performance of Chinese tennis players in this year's US Open. Zhang Shuai also expressed a similar view, "Maybe this year is the 'Year of China'! With so many good young players, I'm glad I'm no longer 'alone'. In the past, I was often the only Chinese player in the competition, and I would feel tired, but now the Chinese team is getting stronger and stronger. Ten years ago we had Li Na and Zheng Jie, but now that they're retired, I feel like it's been a long, long time since so many Chinese players have been so strong. ”
What is even more surprising is that from 33-year-old Zhang Shuai to 19-year-old Zheng Qinwen, from 22-year-old Wu Yiyu to 17-year-old Shang Juncheng, Chinese tennis has also shown a good development trend in terms of talent gradient and structure.
"I'm not surprised that they can do this, there are a lot of people playing tennis in China now, and there are a lot of good players, but in the past two years, due to objective reasons such as the epidemic, there are many games that can't be participated, so it seems that there are no high-ranking players, but that doesn't mean we don't have good players." We are on the right path. Now that they're fully free and show their best selves, I'm happy for them and happy for the people behind them. I hope that more Chinese players will win more Grand Slam titles. Zhang Shuai said. (Source: Tennis House Author: Yun Cirrus Yunshu)
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