Who would still play tennis after being reborn?

Chapter 44 Never seen the world

"Old Li, what are you saying? Are you looking down on Haoyang?"

"He's a champion of the National Games, and he also won several ITF tournaments this year. How long could it take him to beat a high school freshman?"

Sitting beside him, Old Zhang, who was nearly forty years old, gave Li Quan a disgruntled look.

Li Quan chuckled awkwardly: "I was just thinking that every year in the middle school championships, there are always one or two students with decent skills. Take Wang Zhen from Luzhou, for example. His skills are not much worse than Hao Yang's. I just don't know why he didn't go pro. With his skills and age, he might not necessarily achieve anything professionally, but he certainly has a good chance."

Old Zhang rolled his eyes: "I think you're saying that we only have a chance to win the men's singles championship because other students are going to play professionally."

Li Quan looked speechless: "You already figured it out, why say it out loud? What's the point?"

Old Zhang said, "If there is no Wang Zhen, there is Zhang Zhen or other Zhen. Every year, several students with good strength will emerge in the championship. You have only watched the competition for a short time and you have found this Wang Zhen. Among the students who signed up for the men's singles, there may be even more powerful than Wang Zhen. It's just that there are no relevant competition videos online."

"They're not professional players, who would record a match for no reason?"

Even if it's recorded, it might not necessarily be uploaded to the internet.

Li Quan sighed and said, "Well, you know what, there's some truth to that. Without Wang Zhen, we might not have won the championship."

"We still don't have any particularly strong players. Just like Lao Zhou said, if we had a student with similar skills to Hao Yang, we wouldn't need to do so much research."

Old Zhang said, "Even if they did, it wouldn't be of any use. Our area values ​​children's development a lot. If they really had that ability, they would have gone to play professionally long ago. They wouldn't be able to register for the tournament."

Li Quan was speechless.

It's not that they lack good players, but rather that all the good players have gone off to work hard to compete in professional matches.

In coastal areas, there are many wealthy people who are willing to spend a lot of money on their children, even if the huge sum may eventually go down the drain. As a result, those who actually sign up for the National Middle School Tennis Championship are mostly amateur enthusiasts.

The two sighed as if no one else was around, while Old Zhou gestured for Yu Haoyang to sit down.

However, since Yu Haoyang returned so early, Lao Zhou, as his coach and teacher, was not happy about it, but felt somewhat powerless.

Returning early means the match was very short, which shows that Yu Haoyang is very strong, but it also shows that his opponent Gu Cheng is relatively weak.

To be honest, if no one had dared to challenge Yu Haoyang before, he would have even wanted to grab Gu Cheng and give him a good scolding.

In the end, considering that Gu Cheng was not his student, if he was criticized too harshly and Gu Cheng had a low tolerance for criticism, Gu Cheng might not be able to bear the responsibility if something went wrong.

But this inevitably left him feeling somewhat disappointed.

He finally found a kid who was a good match for him. If he was strong, he really wanted to give him some pointers. Even if Gu Cheng didn't play professionally, he was still young. Who knew that under his guidance, he might just open up his potential like Yu Haoyang? What would he need to worry about in the next two years of the middle school championships?
They might win so many men's singles titles they'd be overwhelmed.

The fact that the competition ended so quickly means that Gu Cheng's basic strength is too strong. Even if he devotes all his energy to training him, he may not be able to reach Yu Haoyang's level.

"He's still too young!" Old Zhou sighed.

A high school freshman, fourteen or fifteen years old, is at the age of youthful vigor, acting recklessly and without considering the consequences. Otherwise, he wouldn't have challenged Yu Haoyang just because of a few words from him.

All I can say is that Gu Cheng's temperament suits his taste perfectly.

However... this stubbornness is a major flaw, and if it can't be changed, it's only a matter of time before it backfires.

Being good at your own school doesn't mean that the students you encounter outside of school are equally weak.

"Haoyang, if you have a moment, go and have a chat with Gu Cheng. Tell him not to leave yet, I want to have a good talk with him." Old Zhou turned around and handed the task over to Yu Haoyang.

Although Gu Cheng wasn't very strong, Lao Zhou thought about it and decided to help the kid within his limited means. He couldn't just watch a fourteen or fifteen-year-old give up tennis because of a setback.

However, he didn't have time to worry about Gu Cheng before that.

There's a ton of work to do right now. Many school teams have already gone to the venue to familiarize themselves with it, so he needs to speed things up as well to get the pre-selected students together.

Especially in doubles, without a certain level of teamwork, even the strongest individual player cannot win.

In previous years, the tennis tournaments he led had a pretty good performance in doubles. Although they never won a championship, they always achieved high rankings. Surely they can't fail to even get a top-three finish this year?

It's a foregone conclusion that we won't win the men's singles title, but we can't give up on the other aspects so easily.

"Could you help me sort out this list and mark any problems?" Old Zhou handed a folder-bound list to Yu Haoyang from a stack of documents.

After a while, Lao Zhou realized that no one was taking the list he had handed over, so he turned to Yu Haoyang and said, "What are you thinking about? You look like you've lost your soul. Hurry up and sort out this list for me."

Yu Haoyang then looked up at Lao Zhou, and after a moment of silence, slowly said, "Coach, didn't you follow the situation of the match on Field 1 just now?"

"Your match against Gu Cheng?"

"Ah."

Old Zhou was completely confused: "Why would I care about that?"

"I suggest you take a look!"

"You won't say that after you read it." Old Zhou frowned: "What's wrong?"

"nothing."

"If it's nothing, then help me sort out the list."

"I'm in a bad mood, I want to go for a walk."

Old Zhou: "..."

Watching Yu Haoyang leave, Old Zhou almost cursed, but swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue, only muttering, "That kid, he's getting cocky after achieving some success! He doesn't even listen to me anymore."

Li Quan laughed and said, "There's another ITF tournament in a month. It's very important for Haoyang to be able to play in an ATP tournament and win more ITF junior tournaments. I'm afraid Haoyang is under pressure."

"I don't blame him."

"How could I not understand him?"

Old Zhou smiled helplessly and was about to sort out the list himself when he heard Li Quan say, "Haoyang seemed to have asked you to watch the game at Stadium 1 just now, right?"

"What's so interesting about this? I think he probably said something unpleasant and was afraid we would see it, so he came to test us."

"See, they realized we weren't paying attention at all, so they brought it up themselves. They ran away because they felt guilty."

"How about... we take a look?"

"Take a look. To be honest, I'm quite curious about how good that student named Gu Cheng is."

"You really want to see it?"

“Really look.”

Old Zhou shrugged: "Alright, since you all want to see it, then go ahead and watch!"

"Old Li, pull up the surveillance video."

"done."

After he finished speaking, a group of people gathered around the computer.

Li Quan immediately moved the timeline back to the start of the match.

"Huh? It seems Haoyang gave Gu Cheng the first serve."

As soon as he finished speaking, the group saw Gu Cheng hit an ace at Yu Haoyang's hand with an outside spin serve.

"Wow! A sidespin serve?"

"This kid's serve is pretty good! He actually got an ace from Haoyang."

Old Zhou's eyes twitched, and his expression suddenly turned serious.

Gu Cheng, that kid, seems pretty strong!

This side-spin serve is of very high quality; even professional players may not be able to achieve this level.

As we continued watching, when Gu Cheng shut out Yu Haoyang in his service game, Lao Zhou's heart started racing, and his gaze as he watched the match video changed.

When it was Yu Haoyang's serve, the astonishingly non-bouncing return left the players speechless with surprise.

It wasn't until Gu Cheng won the game 6-0, shutting out Yu Haoyang, that Old Zhou got goosebumps and swallowed hard.

"Haoyang didn't score a single point and was shut out?" After watching the game, Li Quan felt his mouth go dry.

When I looked at Zhou Yuan, I realized that Old Zhou was sitting there grinning foolishly, and his face, which was already quite wrinkled, was starting to blush like a young girl.

Just then, Yu Haoyang returned and pushed open the door: "Coach, I'm going to practice..."

Yu Haoyang originally wanted Zhou Yuan not to bother him, but he didn't expect to see his dear coach with a maternal smile as soon as he opened the door: "Um... Haoyang, he... I mean, Gu Cheng hasn't gone back yet, right? I'm planning to talk to him when we go out to eat later. This young man is just so much to my liking."

"Not leaving."

"That's fine, that's fine!"

Yu Haoyang rolled his eyes, looking at Zhou Yuan's enthusiastic manner, feeling helpless but also thinking that he really had never seen the world.

I've never seen you so warm to me before.

Haha~
Men!

(End of this chapter)