Match Point: Chapter 714 Can\'t hide embarrassment

The O2 Stadium, formerly known as the North Greenwich Stadium nicknamed the "Millennium Dome", is located on the Greenwich Peninsula on the Thames River in northeast London.

It was one of the first buildings in a series of millennium buildings built by countries around the world to welcome the arrival of the 21st century, and successfully attracted global attention.

The whole project was originally only considered to be a temporary construction. Later, after investigation and research, this project is of great value to the revitalization of the surrounding urban area, or to the long-term investment in the construction of transportation infrastructure, so Temporary works evolve into formal projects.

On December 31, 1999, the building was officially unveiled and put into use. Because of its unique shape and grandeur, it has aroused people's enthusiastic attention and has been regarded as one of the most important buildings in the 1990s by many architectural professional magazines. It was also nicknamed the "Pearl of London".

In 2007, the venue was officially opened to the public daily, bid farewell to the commemorative "Millennium Dome" name, and more used O2 stadium to call it.

The O2 stadium has always been a popular venue for various sports events and concerts. In 2012, in order to welcome the Olympic Games, the stadium was refurbished and a batch of new equipment was replaced, which also made the venue more popular. There are countless activities held.

In 2009, exactly five years ago, ATP moved the year-end finals to London, and the O2 stadium has been the venue since then, and it continues to this day.

After Paris, London has also become another city to host two top ATP events:

One is Wimbledon, the oldest Grand Slam.

The second is the year-end finals, the annual Huashan Discussion of Swords.

For men's professional tennis players, the two cities of London and Paris have become extraordinarily special.

Whether you admit it or not, London has always been a city of football. The bars, streets, schools, and buses are all filled with the atmosphere of football, which is deeply imprinted in the blood of the city. Every weekend will be boiled because of football. People poured countless enthusiasm into it.

In front of football, tennis is naturally less popular.

It is precisely because of this that when the ATP year-end finals just came to London, the attendance rate did not meet expectations, which is undoubtedly disappointing.

However, after five years of in-depth market promotion and hard work, the popularity of the year-end finals has been rising steadily, and this year ushered in an unprecedented blowout——

The attendance rate set a new record for the year-end finals!

Moreover, in addition to the spectators who bought tickets to enter the stadium, the daily stream of frenzied crowds in the O2 Stadium also exploded with incredible energy.

Every day, there is always a mighty long queue at the entrance of the training ground. Although we know that there are only a hundred people who can enter the training ground for free to watch the training, the waiting team still has no end in sight. Fields are connected like domino solitaire.

The number of fans waiting in the hotel lobby also exploded to a new high.

Every time, ATP officially organizes fan interaction activities, inviting two players participating in the finals to come and interact with fans face to face, and the number of applicants will explode. The number of fans watching is impressive.

From the moment you get out of the subway station, you can deeply feel the frenzy in the air.

The media reporters who arrived in London from all over the world to report the year-end finals, without exception, lamented that the atmosphere at the O2 Stadium this year was really hot, comparable to a carnival, and even experienced reporters repeatedly exclaimed,

"Never experienced it before".

Literally, detonate the entire market.

In just two match days, The Times couldn't wait to announce:

Stirrup

"This is the most successful year-end finals in history."

In fact, as the host, "The Times" is naturally full of praise; moreover, they have always had the habit of bluffing and exaggerating, "the strongest in history", "the best in ten years", "the most successful in thirty years". "The keyword is not uncommon, especially in the year when the World Cup is held.

But this time, the "Times" is not the only media that thinks so, and similar views have been unanimously endorsed by many different media on five continents.

Judging from the market upsurge, this year's year-end finals are indeed making history, expanding their influence step by step, and trying their best to catch up with the Grand Slam.

Success, there is no doubt about it.

However, life is never that simple, and judging whether something is good or bad is not so rough. The reality is often much more complicated.

In stark contrast to the fiery atmosphere, the bland group matches were drowsily one-sided, not exciting at all.

It's hard to hide the embarrassment.

Competitive sports, in the final analysis, are still looking forward to the wonderful and bayonet-like duel. The hearty victory is certainly gratifying, but the ups and downs and suspenseful rebirth of the narrow victory can really make people excited and vividly interpret "higher, faster Farther" meaning.

Why did this year's year-end finals create a record high? Why can it cause such a frenzy? Why can detonate such an atmosphere?

fresh blood!

Kei Nishikori, who represents the Asian face, and Raonic, who represents the new generation, joined hands on the stage of the O2 Stadium for the first time.

The four Grand Slams belong to four players respectively; in addition, Wawrinka, Tsonga and Gao Wen also reached the top of the Masters.

In addition, the topic of "the disintegration of the era of the Big Four" continued from the Australian Open at the beginning of the year to the end of the year, and it was pushed to a climax step by step; the competition for seats in the year-end finals continued until the semi-finals of the Paris Masters. Confrontation after another.

Everything is proving one thing:

Perhaps, the year-end finals may fall into a melee.

In fact, it has been a long time since the year-end finals. The last time there was an "accident", it was the first time I came to the O2 Stadium in 2009.

That year ~www.mtlnovel.com~ Davydenko and Del Potro made it to the finals unexpectedly, and finally Davydenko won the championship.

In the next four years, Federer won two consecutive championships and Djokovic won two consecutive championships. It was very, very difficult for other players to even reach the finals. Only Tsonga reached the finals once in 2011. The runner-up players in the final are Nadal, Federer and Nadal.

...nothing new.

It's not that people don't like the Big Four—quite the contrary, and the Big Four have undoubtedly the largest fan bases; it's that people expect surprises and changes.

It is precisely because of this that after such a magical and crazy year, people have reason to look forward to the year-end finals:

Not to mention the semi-finals or the lineup of the finals, at least the matchup in the group stage should be more exciting, right?

Look, last week in Paris, Gawain upset Djokovic, Raonic upset Federer, Anderson upset Wawrinka. The top three seeds all lost. So in London, wouldn’t it be Should it be more intense and closer?

But the reality is—