Winston-Salem was formed in 1913 by the merger of the two cities of Winston and Salem. After nearly a century of development, it has now grown into the fourth largest city in North Carolina. It is based on industry.
Industries such as tobacco, textiles, electrical equipment, and furniture were developed.
Among them, because the world-famous Camel brand cigarettes are produced here, this city has also won the reputation of Camel City.
However, since 2011, the ATP 250 Gold Series has made its home here and has become the last event of the US Open series, which makes Winston-Salem always able to attract countless people in the summer every year.
The visits of fans have become a gathering place for tennis lovers.
The schedule of the Winston-Salem Golden Tournament is a little special. In the two weeks before it, there are two top-level North American Masters Series events, where all the top players come out; in the three weeks after it, there is a week-old tournament.
The Grand Slam qualifying tournament and the two-week Grand Slam main draw attract global attention.
Generally speaking, the top ten and top twenty players in the world will take a two-week rest after participating in two Masters tournaments to conserve energy for the Grand Slam, including this event in Winston-Salem.
Skip it altogether, it’s just a gold event anyway, and the level is only higher than the challenge event.
It is precisely because of this that the Winston-Salem Golden Game often has dim stars and lacks attention.
But the reality is that things often happen unexpectedly.
Occasionally, some top players are in poor condition in the two Masters tournaments and are eliminated early. Their warm-up intensity is not enough, and their game feel is not adjusted to the best. They urgently need to mobilize their condition through games before the start of the Grand Slam. Then Winston
-Salem is the best choice.
In addition, young players like Gao Wen are energetic but inexperienced. The closer they get to the Grand Slam, the more they need to maintain their condition. They often go to Winston-Salem to compete. Professionals are also looking forward to passing this event.
The tournament identifies young prospects who may be an upset at the US Open.
MacDonald and Geelong are the same, preparing to go to North Carolina to compete, but they are not able to participate in the US Open, even the qualifying rounds, so this is the last event of their North American season, and they are looking forward to showing themselves.
Strength.
For various reasons, Winston-Salem has attracted a lot of attention.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Gao Wen was still training hard in Los Angeles. After MacDonald and Geelong finished their previous tournament, they had already set off from Vancouver and Montreal to Winston-Salem——
Both players will participate in the qualifying rounds, so they need to arrive early. The two qualifying rounds also need to draw lots, and then the players who advance to the main draw will be decided before Sunday.
But Gawain didn't need it. Tobias applied for a wild card for him and successfully got the favor of the host committee:
The NCAA national championship is only part of the reason, and the challenge for three consecutive weeks is an important bargaining chip.
After his outstanding performance in July, Gao Wen's world ranking has skyrocketed, from no ranking in early July to 193rd in the first week of August.
The three championships accumulated 260 points, allowing Gao Wen to occupy a place in the top 200 of the world's professional rankings.
It is precisely because of this that when Winston-Salem received the wild card application, it was approved without much hesitation.
If you carefully browse the list of world rankings from 101st to 200th, you can see many interesting names——
157, Alexander Zverev.
184, James Odensnick.
185, Zhang Ze.
187, Tannathy-Kokinakis.
193, Gawain.
194, Borna-Coric.
All of them are familiar figures. Apart from the familiar faces of Zverev Jr., Odensnik, Kokkinakis and other challenger opponents, there is also a very, very noteworthy name——
Zhang Ze.
This male tennis player from China was born in 1990. In 2012, he entered the French Open qualifying lineup based on his ranking. He became the second Chinese male professional tennis player to participate in the four Grand Slam singles qualifying matches in the Open era, and created a record in the same year.
A new record in the series of world rankings, with a ranking of 154th, creating the highest ranking in the history of Chinese men's players.
At the Australian Open at the beginning of this year, he further became the first Chinese men's tennis player in the Open era to pass the qualifying test and enter the main draw of a Grand Slam.
Although the overall performance this year is not satisfactory and the world rankings are slowly declining, Zhang Ze is still the unrivaled number one among Chinese men's players.
Then, there is Gawain.
Gao Wen is only eight ranking places behind surpassing Zhang Ze and becoming the new No. 1 brother of China, and is 27 points behind in terms of points. If Gao Wen can perform well in Winston-Salem, then the reversal will be
It's a matter of minutes, and next, Gauvin will strive to become the first male player in history to win a Grand Slam main draw.
Significance.
Quietly, Gawain is writing history.
The younger generation born after 1990 are still struggling, while the junior generation born after 1995 have already caught up, which has many similarities with the development trend of the world tennis world.
It is precisely because he is full of romantic fantasies about the Grand Slam arena that Gao Wen hopes that he can perform well in the Winston-Salem Golden Tournament. What he lacks most now is competition experience. If he does not want to set foot in the Grand Slam for the first time
His knees were shaking during the match, and he needed more competition experience.
call……
call……
It was the end of the orange state again. After Gao Wen took a steady breath, he packed up and went to the bathroom, ready to rinse off and end Friday's training. Then he took a plane to Charlotte in the evening. After arriving there, he took a bus to Winston-Salem.
Lem.
After a simple battle bath, Gawain left the shower room. After changing clothes, he looked at the time and realized that his training was slightly delayed by ten minutes and he still needed to go to the airport with Tobias.
, it is best to speed up a little to avoid being late and missing your flight.
As a result, the movements became faster. Even the idea of opening the system to check the recent gains was temporarily put on hold. He left the bathroom in a hurry and was about to leave the gym when he saw Tobias appearing at the elevator entrance.
Gawain thought he was delaying time, but Tobias came over to urge him and apologized quickly.
"Sorry, sorry, I'm ready and can go now. I practiced two more sets of planks today, so the time is a little longer."
Gawain turned off the lights in the gym and rushed over at a trot.
Tobias made a joke, "Seeing that your steps are still so brisk, you should still have some energy left, so why not practice a little longer in the gym."
In fact, it is because he has gradually adapted to the intensity of the orange state. Gao Wen's current training endurance is indeed getting better and better, and he will never be exhausted even after experiencing the orange state.
But Gawain keenly captured the profound meaning of Tobias's words and paused, "Why, do I still have time to continue training? I thought we needed to rush to the airport..."