Chapter 307: The King of Red Clay

Although it was a joke, Li Mudi was also a little helpless, and sighed that this was really too coincidental! You said that Busta, this kid, will not quit sooner or later, and he has to wait until he has just sat down to say that he will not play, which is really inevitable that there will be some metaphysical ideas.

However, seeing Nadal in the dressing room, who had already taken a shower, his coach Francis Rogge thanked the Torino coach very solemnly after learning of the dramatic situation, and explained: "The game on clay takes too long, too many runs and slides can cause a lot of damage to the player's knee, although Rafa is in good physical condition this year, but the hidden danger of old injuries still exists, and he can get such an unexpected rest. It's a huge benefit for him for the rest of the game. Therefore, whether or not Busta retired because of the arrival of Coach Lee, this is very good news for this French Open and even the tournament afterward. ”

Well, this made the opponent withdraw early, although he really has nothing to do with Li Mudi, but he is still very happy to see this situation, which shows that his friend has been favored by Lady Luck, which is a very good sign. It seems that the honor of the French Open ten-time champion should be stable.

On the other side of the room, Lin Yun'er and Siska finally had the opportunity to communicate, but the two of them spoke English a little average, and after chatting for a few sentences, they found that many meanings were a little unclear, but they did not summon the Turin coach to act as an interpreter, but still chatted happily there, quite a bit of a sense of familiarity at first sight.

After less than five minutes of talking between men and women, Natto, who had taken a simple shower, finally changed his clothes and walked out, greeted the attendees in turn with his unique smile and wrinkled expression, and hugged his friends who had come from Spain on purpose. After being introduced to Lin Yun'er, he has always been bad at words, and he even sighed at the beauty of this Asian goddess, and his envy for the Turin coach to be so lucky to find such a lover.

Because the match ended much earlier than expected, the lunch scheduled for about one o'clock was brought forward by half an hour, but it was still about 70 minutes away, so the group went to Nadal's hotel room to rest and chat. However, Rafa's rest time today is only at noon, and his opponent in the semi-finals the day after tomorrow has already been decided, with Austrian Thiem, who has already played three times this year and has just beaten him in Rome. This strong opponent is a good player who has risen to the top 10 in the world in the past two years, and it is a rare person who has won natto on clay, which is definitely a big difficulty in this French Open journey, so Rafa will have to practice in the afternoon and tomorrow, hoping to win the battle and avenge the loss to the opponent half a month ago.

Li Muddy is not very familiar with this player, but when he learned that this Thiem had just eliminated defending champion Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals, he also felt that the opponent should be a very strong opponent. However, he has full confidence in the strength and form of his friends, and the name of the king of clay is not a cheap thing casually thrown by the outside world, before the start of the French Open, Yahoo Sports once conducted a survey of current players, and the question was who is the greatest clay player in history. More than 97% of people have chosen the name Rafael Nadal, including Federer, the greatest player in the history of tennis, who claims that the Spaniard is a veritable king of clay and that no one can beat him if he is fit.

Bjorn Borg, a six-time French Open champion, also confirmed in an interview that he may not be able to win even a set from natto on clay at his peak, which proves that Rafa's strength on this kind of slow court is definitely the best in history. As long as he can play his game, no one can beat him, and Thiem, who has been cold once, will not be able to stop him from winning the tenth Musketeer Cup.

Sure enough, in the first match of the men's singles semifinals that began on the morning of the 9th, in the face of the "nemesis" who broke his unbeaten golden body in this season's clay tournament, Nadal used his powerful forehand topspin and tireless running ability to prove to the world that he is still the king of this court.

Although he encountered some minor problems at the beginning of the first set and was first broken by his opponent, Natto quickly completed two consecutive breaks and won the first set with a score of 6-3. The second set was also a bit stalemate, Thiem was able to rank in the top 10 in the world, and his ability could not be underestimated, he gritted his teeth and struggled to support, but in the end he still lost a fatal service game and lost the second set 4-6. In the third set, the Austrian finally gave up completely under the strong pressure of his opponent, lost six games in a row and ate duck eggs, and finally stopped this year's French Open semi-finals with a disparity of 0-3 in sets.

After completing this "revenge", Natto reached the final of Roland Garros for the tenth time in history, and he became the ultimate winner of the previous nine times, which also made all tennis fans around the world see the historical moment when a miracle is about to become a reality.

The final against 2015 French Open champion Wawrinka of Switzerland was scheduled for the last day of the tournament, on the afternoon of the 11th, and the last time the two sides met in a Grand Slam final was at the 2014 Australian Open, when Sampras was already on hand to present Natto to equal his 14th Grand Slam trophy. It's a pity that Rafa suffered a recurrence of his old injury in the final, and although he was very tenacious and desperately persevered, he couldn't resist the arrangement of fate in the end, losing 1-3 to his opponent's shooting, missing the best chance to catch up with his old rival Federer.

The two rivals who "formed a bond" three years ago met again on the final championship stage, which naturally attracted the attention of countless fans, especially Wawrinka's 3-2 elimination of top seed Andy Murray in the semi-finals, which made his supporters see the possibility of a counterattack, and this match was hyped into a most evenly matched contest before the start of the match.

However, before the official start of the showdown, Li Mudi did not stay in Paris to pay attention to his friends' preparations. In fact, he came to watch the semi-finals on the 9th, and the rest of the time others were in Turin to deal with team affairs. Because she didn't want her girlfriend to follow her back and forth, coupled with Siska's strong retention, Lin Yuna didn't follow him to be a trapeze, and she went shopping in the fashion capital of the world with her new girlfriend. Seeing the walking numbers displayed on his lover's WeChat, the Turin coach was in a cold sweat at the same time, but he was also glad that he couldn't accompany him because he was busy with work, otherwise his legs might have been amputated, and these two people are too good to walk!

During these three days, Li Mudi spent most of the time in his apartment with Valentino Cairo, not working on the foundation, but making final plans and operations together for the summer transfer window that will open on time in 20 days.

Since the team has been disbanded and furloughed, the players who are on loan until June 30 have essentially nothing to do with the Red Bulls, plus Padelli and Avilar, who have confirmed their transfers, even if two new signings have been booked, Goldaga and Canneman, there are many vacancies on the team's roster to fill.

At the end of March, the Torino coach gave the club's marketing department a list of key signings at the time, and after two and a half months of operation, three of the four names on it have announced that they will not be able to join the team this summer, and the rest of the team has little chance of success.

Due to his outstanding results in the season just ended, Nice FC France, which reached the Champions League qualifiers, announced that they would not sell their potential centre-back Malang Sarr this summer, leaving many other teams who have paid attention to him to wait for the next opportunity; And Santiago Vieira, the fullback who plays for Liverpool in the Uruguayan League, does not have an EU household register, and the Torino team is not strong enough to waste a recruitment quota in the purchase of such a young man who still needs one to two years of actual combat training to become the main force in the team, because that means that when he is just mature, he is very likely to be poached by other strong teams, and the red bull is equivalent to making a wedding dress for others; Ajax FC have not declared centre-back De Ligt, who became the fourth-youngest international in Dutch history in March, not for sale, but with a large number of big clubs, including Barcelona, the offer must not be acceptable to a club like Torino.

Only Sarsfield's 18-year-old striker, Maximiliano Romero, seems to have the best chance of playing in Europe at the moment, although he also has no household registration and has not performed well in Argentina's spring and autumn league seasons in the past. With 17 appearances, most of them as substitutes, and only one goal and one assist, it is difficult to become a leader of the younger generation even in his home country. But in 2015, when he was only 16 years old, he was tipped out by the European media as Messi's successor, and Arsenal also reached an agreement with Sarsfield that summer to acquire the striker for £4.5 million, but a sudden knee ligament injury aborted the deal that was almost signed and sealed.

However, this has not discouraged the continued interest of European teams in the striker, who is far more physical and technically than his peers, with Eredivisie side PSV Eindhoven, Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund and Stuttgart all interested in him and likely to launch an attack this summer, which is not good news for the financially strapped Torino side. According to Li Mudi's estimation through the FM system, it is difficult to grab the talent from those competitors without 9 million euros, but after throwing 10 million to bring in Genoese teenager Pieto Pellegri, their funds can no longer withstand any additional expenses, which means that the "next plum ball king" is basically out of Turin City.

And after chatting about the things that made the team manager feel down, Valentino still brought two good news to the other side to boost morale. The first is that the former Real Madrid legendary goalkeeper Iker Casillas will hold a press conference on the 13th to officially announce that he will not renew his contract with Porto, and the new owner next season is the Red Bulls, who have just risen strongly. Although the other party has verbally agreed to join the team before, there are still certain variables in this matter before it is completely finalized, and with this press conference, it can basically settle the Torino coach who was still a little nervous before.

And the second news made Li Mudi almost jump up from the sofa, Lazio did not reject the offer of the Italian shooter Immobile on the Turin side, although there is still a big difference between the two sides in the specific transaction price, but as long as there is a negotiation, it means that this reinforcement is hopeful.

According to director Pantario Longo, the Blues management is not very happy with the team's performance last season, although the team's attacking power is strong, but the strength of the back line has been seriously retreated, and this summer has been imminent for the renewal of the backfield. However, their financial situation is not too good, due to the overall economic downturn in Italy and the pressure of high salaries of the players in the team, the funds that can be used in the transfer market next season are very limited, and if they want to bring in big stars, they will have to sell people to make up the costs. The forward line, led by Immobile, Senegal international Keita and Serbian center Djojevic, clearly has room for adjustment, especially since the former two are not low in value at the moment, as long as one of them is sold, there will be money to adjust the lineup.

With there are few teams interested in Keita now, when the Torino club proposed the idea of buying the Italian international, even Mihajlovic, who has always been hostile to Li Mudi and the team, did not say no, but wanted to plan how to get the most out of it. It was then that the Torino coach understood why the FM system of the past two days would show that Serbian young midfielder Sasa Lukic, who was loaned to Serie B side Novara last season, would be on Lazio's radar, and it turned out that the other party was interested in putting the promising youngster into the Immobile trade as an add-on, in an attempt to replicate the trajectory of Milinkovic, who gradually developed into a world-class player last season.

After agreeing to let go of the midfielder, who has a potential value of around 145, Li Mudi, who handed over this important transfer that is likely to determine the team's results next season, rushed to Paris again on the evening of the 10th, and witnessed one of the most memorable classic moments in the history of human tennis in the player's box at the Philippe Chartier Stadium the next day.

In what most predicted it would be a battle, Nadal won three sets in a row, 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 to easily defeat Wawrinka to win the French Open men's singles title for the tenth time and become the first player in the Open era to win a double-digit Grand Slam title. At the same time, it was also the third time that he ended up dominating Roland Garros without dropping a set. After this final, his record on clay this season has changed to 24-1, equalling his best record set in 2008; The total number of career clay titles has reached a staggering 53, surpassing the veteran Vilas to rank first in history.

In addition, 10 of the 13 appearances are the best in terms of both the number of championships and the percentage of championships in history, and the overall record of 79-2 at Roland Garros (in 2016 he retired before the tournament due to injury) is even more difficult to find opponents, so that those behind him can't even eat dirt, which proves that the title of "King of Clay" is well deserved.

And most encouragingly, Nadal will return to No. 2 in the world rankings next week. With few points in the second half of last season due to injury, as long as he can maintain his current momentum of 70% in the second half of the season, he is likely to become the world No. 1 again by the end of the year.

Looking at his friends in the middle of the venue who were bowed and worshipped by all the staff, Li Mudi's emotions were naturally very excited, and he learned the secret of success from this big boy from Mallorca, that is, hard work and always maintain the desire for honor.