In the professional tennis world, reaching the Grand Slam is undoubtedly a feat. There are seven games in two weeks, and experts gather to discuss swordsmanship in Huashan Mountain.
If it is a men's match, then the best-of-five sets will be even more difficult.
It is precisely because of the difficulty of winning that Grand Slam championship is so precious. Even if there are four Grand Slams every year, the rarity is far less than that of the Olympic Games and World Cup held every four years, but there is no doubt about the value of the championship.
It is not easy for any player to win a Grand Slam championship; and after winning the first championship, he quickly became the target of public criticism, and it is even more difficult to win the second championship.
Helplessness and struggle are always unavoidable stories in professional tennis.
Among them, the situation in men's tennis and women's tennis is slightly different.
In the women's tennis world, it is because the performance is difficult to stabilize, and the "grand slam" phenomenon is so common; in the men's tennis world, it is because the competition is fierce, and the difficulty of reaching the top is beyond imagination.
However, difficulties are difficult. The most beautiful and touching thing about competitive sports is that if you constantly challenge yourself and challenge your limits, there will always be people who can do it, and then set records one after another, and wait for those who come after you to catch up and break the record again.
, writing a new peak.
The limits are always being refreshed.
However, there is such an unknown "curse" in men's professional tennis that has not been broken so far——
After winning the first Grand Slam trophy in his career, he immediately won the second one.
In other words, after a breakthrough, breakthroughs will continue.
You can imagine how difficult it is, but it is not impossible. There is more than one player in women's tennis who has accomplished such a feat.
Evonne-Fay-gong-Cawley won the French Open for the first time in 1971 and then won Wimbledon.
Chris Evert, in 1974, won Wimbledon immediately after winning the French Open for the first time.
Venus Williams, in 2000, after reaching Wimbledon for the first time, she also reached the US Open.
Jennifer-Capriati (Jennifer-Capriati), after winning the Australian Open for the first time in 2001, she then won the French Open.
Osaka-Naomi, after reaching the US Open for the first time from 2018 to 2019, won the Australian Open the following year.
Etc., etc.
Although the number is not large, it is still quite a lot. It can be seen that the degree of difficulty is very high, but there are still many challengers who have achieved breakthroughs.
However, what is very, very surprising is that no one has ever been able to do it in men's professional tennis.
Obviously, after winning a Grand Slam championship for the first time in their career, male players seem to fall into a trough curse and become lost for a short time.
If you study carefully, you will find that, including before and after the Open era, after winning the first Grand Slam championship, there was only one pitiful person who reached back-to-back Grand Slam finals:
In 2012, Murray reached the top of the US Open and finally had a breakthrough in his career. Then at the Australian Open early the next year, Murray once again performed well and reached the final.
In other words, in the century-old history of professional tennis, it was not until 2012 that Murray broke through the shackles and completed the feat of reaching back-to-back finals after winning his first championship.
Unfortunately, in the 2013 Australian Open final, Murray lost to Djokovic and missed the chance to make history.
In fact, even if pushed back ten years, in 2021, Medvedev won the US Open for the first time, and then reached the final of the Australian Open the following year. He was only the second person after Murray to accomplish such a feat.
However, he unfortunately lost to Nadal in the final and finished second.
This is really unbelievable. Even if you don’t want to believe it, the reality is like this... ghosts beat the wall.
A simple side-by-side comparison:
Federer reached Wimbledon for the first time in 2003 and then lost in the fourth round of the US Open.
Nadal reached the French Open for the first time in 2005, and then lost in the second round at Wimbledon.
Djokovic won the Australian Open for the first time in 2008, and then stopped in the semi-finals of the French Open.
Countless professionals and senior fans are very curious about this matter. One record after another has been broken and updated, but this record has always remained rock-solid.
So, is there a curse or a shackle that restricts male players?
If you say this, it seems ridiculous: how is it possible?
But if you think about it seriously, female players have accomplished such a glorious feat more than once, and three times since the turn of the millennium. However, it was not until 2012 for male players to have a "spark of hope" appear. This is really an exaggeration.
Perhaps, the idea of "curse" is not so absurd.
At the beginning of last year, Wawrinka made a breakthrough for the first time in his career and reached the Australian Open. People have been discussing at that time:
When other players reached the championship for the first time, they were too young and lacked experience, so they were unable to handle pressure and disputes well, so they had no chance to break the curse. Then Wawrinka would not have such a shackles——
After all, Wawrinka is already twenty-eight years old.
The pressure was overwhelming towards Wawrinka, and reached its peak after Wawrinka won the Monte Carlo Masters. Because this is a clay-court Masters, people have reason to have more expectations for Wawrinka's prospects at the French Open.
Expectations, doubts, curiosity, provocations, and disturbing opinions flooded in. Before heading to Paris, Wawrinka was also generally considered to be the favorite to win the French Open. He even surpassed Federer and Djokovic and was chasing Nadal.
The results of it?
Exited in the first round.
It broke countless glasses, so much so that the press conference immediately exploded after the game.
In the blink of an eye, a year has passed, and the players have once again gathered in Melbourne to compete for the Australian Open championship in the new year. Does everything that just happened look familiar?
Basically, everything Wawrinka experienced at the French Open last year has now been directly passed on to Gao Wen.
It is precisely because of this that Agassi tried his best to avoid any form of positive response.
But Agassi soon realized that if the reporters couldn't get what they wanted, they would continue to fight and the matter would not end so easily.
Endless, endless... an infinite loop, which also means that the pressure focused on Gawain's shoulders will inevitably continue to accumulate.
what to do?
In the blink of an eye, Agassi had a bold idea, and then he did this——
Djokovic is the champion, who can refute that?
After all, Djokovic has reached the top four times at Melbourne Park so far, accounting for 57% of his seven Grand Slam titles so far.
Djokovic has tied Federer and Andre Agassi's four-time win, tying him as the player with the most Australian Open wins in the Open era, and is becoming a new generation of "King of Melbourne Park."
Now imagine the headlines from the news media:
"Agassi: Djokovic is the champion."
"Gowan's coach thinks there is little chance of winning the championship."
"Agassi is optimistic about Djokovic winning the championship, but not his disciple."
“Agassi’s pick, spoiler alert: it’s not Gawain.”
"With a bucket of cold water, Agassi used his own way to calm down his disciples."
And so on and so forth.
Social media is definitely going to be buzzing again, but Agassi doesn't mind:
No matter what the media and netizens say, the pressure on Gao Wen to win the championship will be relieved anyway. The last thing they need now is the "curse trouble".
