Previously at the US Open, before Gao Wen faced Djokovic, he asked Dimitrov about his feelings about the game, but competitive sports is like this:
"What you see on paper will eventually make you realize it is shallow, but you will definitely know that you have to do it in detail."
Opinions are only reference opinions after all. Everyone's feelings, everyone's understanding and feelings, everyone's response and reaction are all different.
More importantly, every game is different, including the stadium, spectators, weather, temperature, humidity and personal status.
The most intuitive thing is that Djokovic's state has improved significantly compared to the US Open. Last week at the Imperial Capital Open, he swept Berdych to win the championship in the final, showing an excellent competitive state. Obviously, after three weeks of recuperating and adjusting his condition after losing in the US Open semi-finals, Djokovic is ready to compete for the year-end world No. 1 ranking.
This time in Shanghai, during daily training with Thiem, Gao Wen also talked about Djokovic's hitting many times to prepare Tim mentally.
However, objectively speaking, Tim is still too young and inexperienced now, far from mature, and the entire batting tactical system has not yet been formed. There are too many rounds of blindly hitting the ball blindly, and he lacks a clear tactical idea. , there is still room for growth on both the technical and spiritual levels.
Moreover, the 23-year-old Thiem's playing style is still a typical clay court style, and he has not made adjustments according to the hard courts. He basically has a head-to-head style. He was able to break into the fourth round at the US Open because of his own strength. The performance is also the result of luck and condition, which does not mean that he is good at hard courts.
On fast hard courts, facing Djokovic who maintains balance on both offense and defense, it is indeed difficult for Tim to open up the situation——
In fact, it was not until the 2017 French Open that Tim defeated Djokovic for the first time in his career, ending a five-game losing streak.
That victory was very interesting, and Gao Wen was very impressed, because at the Rome Masters two weeks before the French Open that year, Djokovic and Thiem met in the semi-finals.
As a result, Thiem, who had already made a name for himself on clay, only got one game in the whole game and was swept by Djokovic, "6:1", "6:0", and almost swallowed a double yolk. The disastrous defeat shocked everyone. Everyone's jaw dropped.
Two weeks later at the French Open, Djokovic and Thiem met in the quarterfinals. In view of the recent match, almost everyone thought that Djokovic could win without bloodshed, but the result was once again shocking. :
"7:6(5)", "6:3", "6:0".
It was Thiem who had the last laugh this time, and he also successfully delivered an egg in the third set. Not only did he perfectly avenge the loss of Rome, but he also defeated Djokovic for the first time in his career and broke into the fourth Grand Slam for the first time in his career. powerful.
That game was an important turning point for Tim——
After that, Tim and Djokovic met a total of six times, with Tim leading four wins and two losses, and two of the wins came on hard courts.
His eyes returned to the game in front of him.
Gao Wen did not leave immediately, but stood still and joined other players. Watching the competition of top players was also an important learning.
First of all, we must admit that Tim in 2014 was still immature in terms of strength and technology, and there was still room for growth, but he is now very impactful.
But facing Djokovic, impact is only one of the elements for victory. Unless you are like Wawrinka or Kyrgios, who use unreasonable attacks to continuously bombard the entire court, otherwise it will be so-so. Impact is hard to win——
Line layout and tactical combination are the most important keys.
Djokovic's ability to predict, lay out, and package different shots is unparalleled in the world. If the shot line cannot break the inertial thinking, it will be easy to fall into Djokovic's encirclement covering the entire court. Among them, it then evolved into a situation of fighting for the quality of the ball:
If you are not careful, it is common to go out of bounds or hit the net, and the entire offense will become a situation of "the more powerful you are, the weaker it becomes"; if you are not careful, Djokovic's defensive counterattack will be unsheathed, and he and Murray The two players are top masters of offense and defense transitions, making them difficult to guard against.
Tim is still too honest, and all his batting lines are in order. He is just an honest and honest boy.
As a result, the game was completely under Djokovic's control.
After watching only two games, Gao Wen hurried back to the locker room to prepare for the next doubles match. If there were no accidents, Tim would still be unable to break through Djokovic's iron wall for the time being.
This is also true.
"6:3", "6:4".
Djokovic defeated Thiem in straight sets. One of the statistics is noteworthy:
In the whole match, Tim faced the test of eight break points. Although Tim saved six of them, he was broken once in each set and still lost the game.
If this is just the case, then Tim and Johnson are similar. There is no difference in the score difference. It still needs to be compared horizontally.
Djokovic only sent two break points and saved them all. It can be clearly seen that at least Johansson still made a difference in Gawain's serve; while Djokovic firmly controlled the situation of the game. , giving Tim almost no chance in his serve game.
As an auxiliary reference, Djokovic's first serve scoring rate is as high as 81%, which is a very, very good statistic, which further proves his strength in his own serve.
Obviously, Tim also felt this deeply:
Although he did not read the post-match statistics, Tim's own feelings were intuitive and real. He felt the difficulty in his own serve and the restraint he felt in Djokovic's serve. There were layers of pressure on his face. Come and lose the victory in a confused way.
In fact, if you imagine that all the games played by the Big Four become a game to pay tuition, then the whole feeling will be different.
"Wow. Wow..."
Returning to the locker room, Tim did not have time to regret the defeat. After a quick shower, he and Gao Wen met in the gym to resume training, adjust their physical condition, and prepare for the upcoming doubles match. He kept seeing Gao Wen and sighed. and surprise burst out uncontrollably.
It's not sadness or anger, but a kind of excitement, mixed with frustration, annoyance, irritability, excitement and excitement.
"What's going on with Novak's serve? It's obviously nothing special, but he just can't find a chance."
"His serve is actually very powerful. He is different from Rafa. In the first shot after the serve, he often does not attack directly immediately, but spreads out the layout, so the serve and the first shot are coordinated with each other. If If you don't change your return, it means you've fallen into his trap."
"...Is that so? Then how did you deal with it? Novak's first serve didn't leave much room for attack."
"Domi, don't think about ending the fight in one or two beats, that's Djokovic."
Chirping, chattering... Gawain and Tim became more and more excited and happy as they talked.
