Now that I've been reborn, I have to play tennis!

Chapter 16: Facing a Famous General from a Previous Life
The No. 1 seed is Medvedev from Russia?
Holy crap, even CEO Mei is here!
Meng Hao was also quite surprised when he saw the competition list.

By the way, Medvedev, like him, was born in 1996, and this year is also his last year participating in youth competitions.

If Meng Hao is not mistaken, Mei is probably planning to participate in the youth tournament and the ITF Hope Tournament together.

"This guy is quite the workaholic!"

He remembered that Mei was a late bloomer. For the first two years after turning professional, his performance was mediocre, and his world ranking was only a few hundred. It wasn't until he was twenty that he suddenly had a breakthrough and his ranking soared.

One Medvedev, one Rud.

This mere J60 youth tournament held in Ningzhou has surprisingly attracted two former champions.

It seems that winning the championship will be quite difficult for me!

Rude was alright, after all, he was just a sixteen-year-old young man, but President Mei was the same age as him.

As expected, he had chosen the most difficult path.

Meng Hao found a boy who also looked very young to practice with, hoping to get a feel for the game.

But he noticed that the boy seemed to be under a lot of pressure, looking somewhat gloomy and unhappy.

Actually, this boy has pretty good basic skills. He has obviously received many years of professional training, and he uses various small techniques very reasonably.

But after Meng Hao hit a beautiful cross-court shot that broke the opponent's serve, the boy's parents rushed onto the court and gave their son a severe dressing-down.

The boy suddenly broke down and burst into tears.

"I really did my best!"

"Wow, I don't want to learn tennis anymore!"

The boy's parents became even angrier upon hearing this, and angrily dragged him aside, continuing to berate him.

"After studying for so many years, if you just quit like that, does that make you a man?"

"Your family has already spent almost a million yuan on your tennis lessons. Have some sense of responsibility!"

"One should finish what one starts; how can one give up halfway through!"

Although Meng Hao did not specifically eavesdrop on their conversation, he vaguely heard some words such as "No matter how hard or tiring it is, you have to keep studying," "If you get a good ranking, you can go to a good university," and "You are not playing for your parents, you are playing for yourself."

And then there was that line, "Can't you learn from your opponent? You're not that much older, but he plays so well and doesn't even have his parents with him," which really made Meng Hao lose his temper.

Didn't these parents realize that the difference in ability between the two of them was far too great?

While both talent and hard work are important, talent becomes more important when everyone is working hard.

Meng Hao, not wanting to make a fool of himself, stepped forward to comfort them: "Your children have already tried very hard, don't push them so hard."

This is too Versailles.

He chose to walk away silently.

Not long after, the match-up draw was released.

Meng Hao's pupils constricted upon seeing the lottery form.

His first-round opponent was Ruud from Norway.

She is 16 years old, ranked 92nd in the world junior rankings, and is the 8th seed in this tournament.

Of course, there is some correlation between strength and ranking in youth competitions, but the correlation is not significant.

For example, Alcaraz, the future Spanish superstar, was ranked 21st in the world junior rankings before turning professional.

"Oh my God!" The female foreign teacher named Mina found Meng Hao. "This is so unlucky, you two actually met in the first round!"

"I don't know who to cheer for!"

Meng Hao looked embarrassed upon seeing this.

Was it really necessary for this female foreign teacher to go to such lengths?
You can totally cheer for your friend's son, I'm fine.

That way, I'll feel even more accomplished if I win! Not far away, Rude said smugly to his mother, "My opponent was just an unranked guy; I won easily!"

There are many top-level youth competitions in Europe, and this family spent a lot of money just to bring them to the Asian competitions.

Meng Hao's thought at that moment was that your family's money had been wasted this time.

……

In youth competitions, the skill gap between players is still quite significant.

Therefore, we often see exaggerated scores such as 6-0 (giving away an egg) or 6-1 (giving away a fried dough stick).

Meng Hao also quietly observed for a while, and found that the European and American athletes who traveled thousands of miles to China to participate in the competition were indeed formidable.

After all, if the other side didn't have enough strength, they wouldn't have chosen to travel such a long distance to participate in the competition.

At this moment, Meng Hao was already standing on the sidelines warming up; it would be his turn to play in the next match.

Jogging, jumping, swinging the racket!

This was Meng Hao's first real match in his tennis career, so he was naturally quite excited.

"Young man, get ready, the competition is about to begin!"

"Wow, that was fast! The last match only lasted 30 minutes!"

Meng Hao turned his head and saw that the scoreboard showed two "6:0".

A Chinese male contestant was dejectedly packing his bag, tears still glistening in his eyes, while his opponent was from Australia.

Is this Australian guy really that strong?
Meng Hao had just observed that Chinese player, and he seemed to be quite strong, even stronger than Shen Dongguo. Yet, he was defeated by that Australian.

The Australian man's name is Yashica, born in 1997, a year younger than me.

"I don't remember him at all. He definitely wasn't an ATP Tour level player in my past life."

In his previous life, Meng Hao was a passionate tennis fan, and he generally remembered most of the top 100 players in the ATP rankings.

By the way, this guy might be one of my quarterfinal opponents if I can keep winning.

However, Meng Hao also discovered a pattern: there was indeed something fishy about the lottery results.

Those athletes with sports bureau backgrounds generally avoided European and American athletes in the first round, while those without such backgrounds faced only European and American athletes in the first round.

This is simply throwing them away as human casualties!

The road to professional tennis is indeed this difficult.

Meng Hao stretched his limbs, picked up his racket, and went onto the court.

Tennis matches for teenagers are not traditionally best-of-three-sets.

If the first two sets are tied 1-1, then the third set will be a tiebreaker.

This regulation serves two purposes: first, it saves time, and second, it conserves the players' energy.

Tennis, after all, is a sport that requires constant running and is very physically demanding.

Uh?
Meng Hao noticed that the female foreign teacher named Mina was enthusiastically cheering Rude on in her native Norwegian.

Hmph, this two-faced foreign girl, she was just pretending to be in a dilemma.

You'll be crying later!

"My skill level should be at the challenger level by now!"

As Meng Hao shook hands with Rude, he confidently declared in somewhat broken English, "I will be the champion!"

……

(End of this chapter)