Who would still play tennis after being reborn?

Chapter 154 No, the match was over from the very beginning.

Gu Cheng's figure appeared like a ghost before the ball landed!
Before everyone's eyes, his body was almost completely stretched out, and the racket in his right hand was swung out fiercely from bottom to top and from back to front at an extremely strange angle, almost perpendicular to the ground, to meet the whistling ball that was coming with destructive power!
It wasn't a smash! It wasn't a slice! It wasn't a block!
That was an unprecedented move! The racket's swing was short and rapid, carrying an extreme decisiveness and a desperate, all-or-nothing intensity!

At the instant the racket face contacts the ball, the wrist makes an extremely internal, downward flicking motion with a tiny amplitude that is almost imperceptible to the naked eye! It's as fast as a phantom!
"Hiss—Buzz—!"

A bizarre, teeth-grinding scraping sound instantly drowned out all the noise in the stadium!
That wasn't the crisp sound of hitting the ball; it was more like the painful groan of the tough strings under extreme load, or like high-speed spinning metal tearing through dense air!

Under the intense gaze of countless horrified eyes, the bright yellow tennis ball, imbued with terrifying kinetic energy and topspin by Gu Cheng, seemed to be forcibly twisted and tamed by an invisible and extremely strange force the moment it came into contact with Gu Cheng's almost perpendicular racket face!
Time seemed to be infinitely stretched and frozen at this moment.

Contrary to expectations, the ball, after being released from the racket strings, was not flung away by the enormous impact or fell limply to the ground.

It flew along a low, nerve-wracking trajectory, skimming just above the top edge of the net!

The ball was moving at an astonishing speed! It had a strange, deep hum unique to high-speed spin! Like an elf imbued with evil magic!

"It's over the net?!" someone exclaimed in surprise.

Benneteau stands at the net, possessing top-tier reaction speed and interception ability among doubles players.

The moment Gu Cheng swung his racket, he anticipated that the ball would be a net shot!

Without hesitation, he slammed his right foot off the ground, his body moving laterally with incredible speed, like a cheetah pouncing on its prey. His racket was already flashing towards the net, ready to deliver a deadly volley!

His movements were undeniably fast, and his judgment undeniably accurate! However, just as his racket was about to touch the fleeting shadow of the tennis ball—

A sudden change occurred!

The high-speed tennis ball, less than a centimeter from the center line of the net, seemed to suddenly crash into an invisible, downward-sloping ice wall!
There was no deceleration! No rebound! Instead, to everyone's incomprehension, it plummeted vertically downwards in a way that completely defied the laws of physics! It was as if it had been slammed down from a great height by an invisible giant hand!
"Shh!"

The tennis ball traced a near-death 90-degree curve in the air!
Benneteau's racket, carrying the force of a volley, grazed the air less than an inch above the tennis ball, swinging in vain!

He could even clearly feel the faint airflow generated by the high-speed rotation of the ball, scraping against the edge of the racket frame! The expression on his face instantly changed from focused interception to extreme astonishment and bewilderment, his pupils dilating sharply in shock!

"boom!"

A soft sound, yet it struck everyone's heart like a heavy hammer!

The ball landed vertically just over a meter from the net! The landing point was right inside the service court, incredibly close to the net!

This is not over yet!

The instant the ball touched the ground, the unimaginable extreme backspin energy imparted by Gu Cheng's racket face was released like a sealed demon!
It didn't bounce forward! It didn't splash to the sides!

After landing, the ball inexplicably bounced back rapidly in the direction it came from—directly towards the net! Its speed was even faster than when it came from! Like a yellow lightning bolt shooting close to the ground!

"Whoosh-!"

The tennis ball, with a sharp whooshing sound, finally struck the white net strap at the bottom edge with a soft "snap," bounced weakly, and rolled into Benneteau's half of the court.

Dead silence.

Absolute, vacuum-like silence!
The stadium in Melbourne, a huge space that can hold tens of thousands of people, seemed to have been muted at this moment, and all the air was instantly sucked out.

Time stood still.

Bennett stood stiffly at the net, frozen in his volleying posture, as if petrified.

His expression froze completely, a mixture of extreme shock, bewilderment, and the blankness that followed the complete upheaval of his worldview.

His eyes were fixed on the small ball lying quietly in the opponent's half of the court, close to the net, as if he were looking at a monster from another dimension.

Roger stood at the baseline, leaning slightly forward, his outstretched racket frozen in mid-air.

The rage and confidence on his face had vanished without a trace, leaving only a blank stare as if he had seen a ghost.

His mouth was slightly open, as if he wanted to roar, but he couldn't utter a sound. All his roars were blocked deep in his throat, turning into silent spasms.

The referee on the chair had his mouth half-open, his eyes wide open, and his hand holding the microphone frozen in mid-air, seemingly having completely forgotten his duty to announce the scores.

The linesmen were equally dumbfounded, like clay sculptures or wooden statues.

In the audience, the deafening jeers, whispers, and sighs... all the sounds vanished.

Thousands of faces displayed an almost uniform expression of utter astonishment.

Their mouths were slightly open, their eyes were wide, and their bodies were leaning forward, as if they had all been frozen in place.

Countless eyes were fixed on the small ball lying quietly in front of the net, as if trying to see a hole through it.

This terrifying silence lasted for a full three or four seconds.

Then, it erupted like a volcano that had been accumulating for millions of years!

“OH MY GOD!!!” A shrill, distorted female voice pierced the deathly silence like tearing fabric!
"WHAT WAS THAT?!?!" A gruff male voice roared in response, filled with unbelievable shock.

“Holy shit! Did you see that?! It went back to the net! Back to the net!” another voice screamed incoherently.

“It dropped! Straight down! Like a stone! And then… it jumped back?! How?!” Someone tried to describe this incomprehensible scene with screams.

“Magic! That’s pure magic!” someone shouted hysterically, their voice filled with madness and fanaticism.

……

On the sidelines, Zhang Ming, who had been looking worried, suddenly raised his head.

His eyes widened in shock, his mouth formed an "O" shape, and the weariness and despair on his face vanished, replaced by unbelievable ecstasy and excitement!
He instinctively grabbed the bench next to him, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

"I...I knew it! This guy was hiding his strength!" Zhang Ming's voice trembled as if he were about to cry, and he was so excited that he couldn't speak coherently.

To be honest, Zhang Ming was one of the few people present who knew that Gu Cheng had also mastered the evolved version of the ultimate Thousand Hammers Technique, but even so, seeing Gu Cheng struggling on the field, he still couldn't help but feel a little worried.

He had actually guessed it.

Gu Cheng probably intended to conceal his strength, so even though he was severely suppressed, he didn't use his ultimate, refined technique.

But he didn't expect that Gu Cheng, besides possessing the ultimate skill honed through countless trials, would also have such amazing ball skills.

Moreover, it's a tennis technique that has never appeared in the world of Prince of Tennis.

Zhang Ming was pleasantly surprised.

He knew better than anyone what this meant.

You see, this guy has so much hidden talent. Even without him, Gu Cheng could probably defeat many strong opponents on his own, and win all the honors at the Australian Open with an amazing performance on his first appearance there. Perhaps, to others, this seems impossible.

After all, Gu Cheng participated in not just one competition, but four different types of competitions. No one has that much energy, and no one can withstand such a great physical test.

But he believed that, at least based on Gu Cheng's performance just now, this guy was definitely capable.

Zhang Ming even suspected that Gu Cheng was hiding many things.

Because he had just overheard Gu Cheng talking about one of the ultimate counterattacks, meaning there was a second or even a third.

Perhaps more.

……

On the pitch, Benneteau finally snapped out of his petrified state.

He slowly and stiffly turned his head, his gaze passing over the net to the figure on the other side who was still in the finishing position after hitting the ball.

Gu Cheng remained standing in the same spot, maintaining the posture he had adopted after slashing upwards.

Sweat streamed down his downcast face, dripping onto the dark blue court.

However, beneath those drooping eyelids, deep within those visions blurred by sweat and exhaustion, a faint yet incredibly tenacious glimmer of light, like the first star after a storm, struggled and stubbornly shone anew in the boundless abyss of darkness.

Bennetteau's gaze was fixed intently on Gu Cheng.

That gaze was extremely complex, filled with astonishment, uncertainty, incomprehensible confusion, and an unprecedented solemnity and scrutiny arising from a complete overturning of one's understanding.

He looked at Gu Cheng's jersey, which was completely soaked with sweat and clung to his body like a second skin.

This young man had clearly been on the verge of collapse, with every inch of his body emitting painful cries.

But what was that shot he hit?
That surpassed all the physical laws of tennis that Benneteau had known throughout his more than 20 years of professional career!
It was even more amazing than any tennis skill he had ever seen in The Prince of Tennis.

That vertical, deathly fall…

That bizarre, reverse bounce, as if drawn to the net by a magnet…

That incredible rotation and trajectory control…

This is definitely not a fluke!

Bennetteau's intuition was screaming wildly.

This is more like a forbidden, ultimate technique that is only unleashed when one is driven to the brink of despair and burns their life force!
What exactly is hidden within this Chinese man named Gu Cheng?
Is there an even more terrifying storm lurking deep within that seemingly barren desert?

A chilling feeling, mixed with intense unease and an irrepressible curiosity, crept up the back of the veteran Benneteau.

The roar of the stadium continued to rage wildly, like an inextinguishable flame. But...
In Benneteau's perception, the world seemed to consist only of the solitary figure on the other side of the net, teetering on the brink of collapse yet igniting a faint light in the abyss, and the bright yellow ball lying quietly in front of the net, seemingly still silently mocking the laws of physics.

Roger stared blankly at the person opposite him, speechless.

His feelings were the same as Benitez's.

Roger's Adam's apple bobbed violently, his gaze fixed on the tennis ball that defied all logic.

As a veteran who has won the Grand Slam seven times and has watched The Prince of Tennis countless times, even before that, after learning that Gu Cheng would be his opponent in the first round of doubles, he spent those days either watching The Prince of Tennis or watching Gu Cheng's previous matches.

It's fair to say he's watched the entire Prince of Tennis series countless times.

He believes he has seen too many amazing ball skills—whether it's Tezuka Kunimitsu's "Zero-style Chop" or Atobe Keigo's "Tanhäuser Serve," they have all left a deep impression on his retina.

But this return shot was like a sharp scalpel, dissecting his preconceived notions of tennis into pieces.

The ball's trajectory wasn't a parabola at all, but a strange right-angled broken line!

This kind of return shot was more mysterious and incredible than any other ball skill he could remember.

Roger's nails dug deeply into his palm.

Gu Cheng used an almost vertical racket face to complete an incredible "reverse taming" of the ball at its lowest point.

The wrist's inward rotation was so small as to be almost nonexistent, yet it gave the tennis ball enough backspin to defy gravity.

He suddenly remembered what the tactical coach had mentioned about the "Tannhäuser serve," a serve that posed a great threat to them because it was unbreakable.

But the counter-attack shot, the "reverse cut," is no longer just a simple evolution.
It's clearly a reconstruction of the laws of motion in tennis!
how come.
Roger heard broken syllables squeezed out of his throat.

Sweat dripped down his chin and onto the racket handle. He suddenly noticed that the back of Gu Cheng's jersey was soaked with sweat and turned a deep blue, but his face remained calm.

Clearly, Gu Cheng's physical abilities had not reached their limit.

However, Gu Cheng's body did not appear to be particularly strong.

But it was precisely this seemingly unimpressive physique that produced miraculous shots that even data tennis couldn't calculate.

His gaze swept over Benneteau's stiff back, and suddenly he saw his own reflection in the eyes of his doubles partner: a sense of shame and indignation at being driven to the brink by a junior, mixed with fear of the unknown.

Two weeks ago at the training ground, Roger still remembered Bennetteau scoffing at Gu Cheng's match footage on TV: "A flashy but impractical showman."

But at that moment, when that return shot, which defied Newton's laws, landed squarely inside the service line, and when the tennis ball bounced backward as if pulled by some mysterious force after hitting the ground, he suddenly realized that he had made a fatal mistake—he had underestimated this outcast from the East.

The cheers from the stands surged like a tsunami, yet seemed as blurry as if seen through frosted glass.

Roger bent down to pick up the tennis ball at his feet, his fingertips tracing the texture of the ball. He suddenly remembered what his coach had told him when he won his first Grand Slam at the age of seventeen: "Tennis is a rational sport; all miracles are hidden in formulas."

But at this moment, Gu Cheng tore away the hypocrisy of those words with his actions.

When rationalists meet rule-breaking madmen, all tactical analyses become worthless.

Roger raised his head and met Gu Cheng's lowered but stubborn gaze.

Those eyes were bloodshot with weariness, yet they also burned with a light that made his heart tremble—a resolute determination to survive against all odds, a stubbornness to turn the impossible into the possible.

The competition seems to have only just begun.

No... I should say that from this moment on, it's already going to end ahead of schedule.

(End of this chapter)