Match Point: Chapter 1290 Clay Journey

Roberto-Bautista-Agut (Roberto-Bautista-Agut), born in 1988, is a Spanish player and is currently ranked sixteenth in the world.

When people mention Spanish players, "clay experts" are often the first impression, from Moya to Ferrero to Nadal, all of them are like this; There are also a lot, and the home court of the Davis Cup is also clay.

However, among a group of clay court masters, there are also some outliers, such as Fey Lopez who is good at grass courts, Busta who is good at hard courts, and so on.

Agut is also a special case—

He is good at hard courts.

As of 2022, Agut has won a total of eleven singles championship trophies in his career, eight from hard courts, two from clay courts, and one from grass courts.

In addition, Agut has entered ten finals in his career and regrettably finished runner-up, eight hard courts, one grass court, and only one clay court.

It is clear at a glance.

Obviously, Agut is a hard-court master. His baseline skills are very solid, and he has a strong ability to resist forehand and backhand. Although he is not good at exerting force, he has the ability to change lines But it is definitely the top ten level in the world, with both offense and defense.

In Agut's career, he has repeatedly defeated the top ten players in the world, including Murray, Wawrinka, Berdych, Tsitsipas, Medvedev, Tim, etc., but he is the most brilliant and the most The shining feat is to win three consecutive victories against the world's No. 1 Novak Djokovic on hard court.

Magic City in 2016, Doha in 2019, and Miami in 2019.

Three times, all were on hard courts, and two of them were on the stage of the Masters; moreover, Djokovic is the world's No. 1 and in good condition, but Agut still proved his baseline hitting ability.

Perhaps, Agut is not the most shining star in the tour. His best result in a Grand Slam is a Wimbledon semi-final and an Australian Open quarter-final; but he is definitely a strong opponent that any player needs to be vigilant against. Guan's ability to advance to the fourth round every time is the best proof.

In terms of technical characteristics, Agut is good at flat hitting, and is indeed more suitable for hard courts. When he comes to clay, his baseline power will be weakened. Djokovic faced Agut during his three-game losing streak on hard courts. , In fact, the clay has defeated Agut twice, which can explain the problem.

However, if you think that Agut is easy to bully when you come to the clay court, you are definitely wrong.

In the quarterfinals, Gao Wen is about to face Agut, facing a severe test.

This game is indeed full of challenges—

The biggest feature of Agut's batting is solidity.

From the analysis of data such as strength and speed, Agut's batting seems to have no characteristics. It is not powerful and fast, and it is stable; but when you really stand on the court, you can feel that Agut's basic skills are solid and complete. So the synergy of the whole shot is very good.

The return of the ball does not seem to be fast or heavy, but the tail force is full of squeeze.

Although it lacks some impact and explosive power, unlike Wawrinka and Del Potro, who can break the game with one shot, Agut focuses on stability:

He can continuously output firepower, excellent movement, accurate prediction and delicate technique, ensuring that he can maintain the quality of the ball in the confrontation of the round ball, and push all the attacks back wave after wave. And take advantage of the force to return all the attacks.

Moreover, Agut's batting seems to have no characteristics on the surface, lacking changes and skills, but in fact, it is definitely not the case.

Come on, top.

In fact, it can also be said to be "squeeze" or "shock".

From a certain point of view, Agut's baseline shot is somewhat similar to that of the later women's world No. 1 Halep. Both of them hit the ball continuously and pushed back, squeezing the opponent through pushing deep and pressing with strength and landing point. The swing space, and then layer upon layer to accumulate this squeeze.

As a result, the opponent will feel a "top" feeling, the tennis ball is against the racket, so that his elbow is against his stomach and cannot be stretched.

Once, twice, three times... Over time, the quality of the ball returned will continue to decline, which is also an important reason why Agut was able to beat Djokovic three times in a row.

Second, borrow strength.

Agut himself is not a strong explosive player, and often encounters force suppression, but he is good at leveraging strength.

By borrowing power, he can compress his batting rhythm, almost hitting a rebound ball, quickly tearing the ball with one shot, and completing the shot in an instant.

Moreover, when borrowing strength, he can take advantage of the trend to tear the angle, and can also change the line. This ability to overcome rigidity with softness can be called a killer feature.

It is precisely because of this that Agut is more suitable for hard courts. He needs to make full use of his speed and rhythm, but when he comes to clay courts, his speed is slowed down and his rotation effect is amplified. The ball is parabolic, and it is difficult to improve the rhythm and speed of the ball return.

However, the basic skills are there, maybe the upper limit is not high, but the lower limit is not low.

Gao Wen fell into a hard fight.

"6:3", "2:6", "6:1".

The whole game took two hours and 23 minutes, and the progress of the game was far more difficult than the score. In the end, Gao Wen fought hard for three sets, improved his state in the final set, and firmly controlled the game. An important victory was ushered in on the clay court.

In this game, victory is very important, very very important, but more importantly, it has a strong confrontation with Agut's bottom line and played well.

As we all know, clay court games are often prone to bottom-line tug-of-war. The hitting ability of the bottom-line round is the most important thing, especially the ability to switch between offense and defense. The requirements are stricter than those on hard courts and grass. It will all be exposed on the clay court.

Facing a bottom-line master like Agut, they didn't have many fighting skills before the net, but Gao Wen really played well in the bottom line, and his eyes were red.

In the long run, Gao Wen needs such a match, not just one or two, to complete the clay court trial.

really!

Facts quickly proved this point.

Immediately afterwards, the semifinals.

Gawain faced Martin-Klizan of Slovakia, also a player who rocketed up the world rankings last year.

Born in 1989, the world ranking was still outside the top 100 at the beginning of last year, but now it has reached the 24th~www.mtlnovel.com~ and continues to refresh the best in his career; The good performance of Zhigui and other players can be regarded as members of the "Challenger Storm".

However, in the face of Gao Wen, Krizan's baseline shot was completely unable to keep up, and the performance of the audience continued to be suppressed. He became a direct witness of Gao Wen's progress on clay—

"6:2", "6:1".

Gao Wen lost only three sets and only took 73 minutes for the whole match. He had already entered the singles final of the fifth event of the season with his head held high and his chest high.

This time, Gao Wen is about to face a familiar old opponent in the final——

Kei Nishikori.

The current Asian No. 1 and No. 2 duel again.

But wait, Kei Nishikori? How could it be Kei Nishikori?

(end of this chapter)