"He doesn't play by the rules..." Wang Chao said helplessly.
That feint, change-of-line pull shot Wang Chao had just used had clearly been extremely sophisticated. Wu Li had not figured out what kind of spin had been added to the ball at all.
But Wu Li did not bother to judge it. He only needed to use strength far beyond Wang Chao's to forcefully pull the ball, using the friction he created to completely wipe out the spin originally attached to it.
—Of course, this was absolutely not the correct way to counter it. But because Wang Chao's shots were simply too soft, it actually worked when Wu Li played that way.
This was called One force overcomes ten skills.
No matter how many changes you made, I would break them all with strength.
Under these circumstances, the score gradually began to widen.
4:0.
4:1.
5:1.
6:1.
7:1.
7:2.
8:2.
9:2.
9:3.
10:3.
11:3.
The first game ended at 11:3. Wang Chao lost the first game.
Everyone could see how cleverly Wang Chao had played. Every one of his serves varied, every return involved a feint, and the few all-out attacks he made all produced change-of-line effects, causing Wu Li tremendous trouble.
But Wu Li simply did not play by the rules.
Even when Wang Chao fooled him, he could still readjust his position before the ball came over.
Even when he could not see the ball's spin clearly, he could still forcefully pull it back.
He sprinted all over the court, even rushing up to the net to desperately save balls. He threw caution to the wind, like a madman, treating every point as more important than his own life. He even fell beside the table while making an overly forceful save, drawing roaring laughter.
He looked utterly bedraggled, and he had sweated no less than Wang Chao.
Yet he remained this ferocious throughout, showing not the slightest sign of running out of strength.
"What a monster..." Many players murmured quietly from outside the court.
Everyone present had served as Wu Li's practice partner before and had been tormented by him for varying lengths of time. But only today did they realize that the Wu Li who had tormented them back then had not even been Wu Li in his complete form.
Only today, when facing Wang Chao, had Wu Li been forced to reveal his most crazed side because Wang Chao was too "cunning."
This was a true iron man who never stopped running!
Wang Chao sat on his chair, gasping for breath and taking a few bites of banana. Seeing that the timer by the table was nearly up, he painfully got to his feet and slowly made his way back to the table.
"Go, Brother Chao!" Jiang Shan shouted from afar.
Wang Chao looked around and saw that everyone had raised their arms.
"Wang Chao, come on!" Liu Heng was shouting.
"Wang Chao, you can do it!" Xiao Ping and Xiao Jian shouted.
"Wang Chao, crush Wu Li! Crush that ping-pong maniac!" Everyone was shouting.
Even Zhou Bo, who had been beaten into a shut-in by Wang Chao in the very first match today and had not won a single game all day afterward, was shouting, "Go, Wang Chao!"
Wang Chao was a little startled, then understood and laughed silently.
Right. These people had all been bullied badly by Wu Li over the past two years...
So in the end, everyone was actually on his side, hoping he would defeat that Great Demon King?
They were not really supporting him. They just wanted to see Wu Li lose...
Wu Li remained silent, as if the voices around him had no effect on him whatsoever. He pinched the ball in his hand and served directly once Wang Chao assumed a defensive stance.
It was still a long serve to the baseline.
Wang Chao had once heard Jiang Shan say that Wu Li also had plans and variations in his play. But today, Wu Li seemed to have abandoned all variation, wholeheartedly determined to compete with Wang Chao in the fundamentals.
Perhaps he also knew that he could never outthink Wang Chao, so he simply did not waste the brainpower.
By serving long to the baseline, he was forcing Wang Chao to attack, then forcing him into rallies.
In the first game, his scheme had actually succeeded.
Wang Chao had certainly tried many different variations, but fundamentally, when facing such high, long baseline balls that came off the table, every variation he used was essentially an initiative attack.
As long as he attacked, Wu Li would step back from the table, pull back unreasonably, and forcibly drag the exchange into a rally.
Then the strength-depleted Wang Chao would quickly abandon the rally and return to blocking, becoming purely defensive.
Then Wu Li would pull through his defense stroke by stroke.
In the blink of an eye, four more points had passed. The score was 3:1, with Wu Li leading.
Wang Chao's one point had come from the psychological tactic of Spin-or-No-Spin. He had served a high toss that looked extremely spinny, forcing Wu Li to put all his power into the pull. In reality, the ball had no spin at all. Wu Li's pull sent it straight up and off the table.
Then Wu Li served again, another utterly unimaginative long baseline ball. This time, to make it easier for Wang Chao to launch an attack, Wu Li even shifted the landing point from Wang Chao's backhand to his forehand.
Wang Chao was getting irritated and decided to think of a way to break this unpleasant situation.
He shifted his body to the right and lowered his arm beneath the ball, then lifted upward. Driven by his wrist, the racket in his hand rotated counterclockwise to the limit, looking like a spring wound as tight as it could go.
This sight naturally made a term pop into many minds beside the court: banana flick.
Yes, this was a standard banana flick stance.
But the banana flick was a shakehand technique. Wang Chao held a penhold racket, with his thumb and index finger locking the racket firmly in place. How could he flick it?
The answer was: relax.
At that instant, Wang Chao loosened his fingers, shifting into an almost half-grip. The racket stood vertical, as if he truly intended to flick it, but in the instant before the racket face touched the ball, his racket suddenly dropped, changing into the angle for a short placement.
The ball landed on the racket face. Wang Chao's wrist began rotating rapidly clockwise, like a tightly wound spring releasing. His elbow turned outward as he sent the ball away.
At that moment, everyone on and off the court was stunned, to the point that even the ever-present buzzing outside the court stopped.
No one had ever seen that stance, much less that kind of shot.
In that instant, no one knew what physical force had acted between the ball and the racket face, much less whether the ball had spin when it flew out, or what kind of spin it had.
Even Wu Li was dumbfounded.
If he could still rely on his powerful body to forcibly absorb Wang Chao's previous deceptive moves, then this time, he truly did not understand it at all.
He had seen every movement Wang Chao had used before, but this move... he had never seen it in his entire life.
When the ball flew toward him, it only felt floaty and spinny, its trajectory somewhat abnormal. He forced himself to pull with power, yet he actually swung at nothing. His racket flew high, while the ball slipped beneath it.
The score became 3:2.
After a brief silence, the arena erupted!
"What was that?"
"Is that a new technique?"
"Have you ever seen a technique like that?"
"I definitely haven't. I wonder whether Director Luo has."
"Look at Director Luo's expression. Does he look like he's seen it before?"
At the appearance of a suspected new technique, everyone was excited.
Only Jiang Long, standing beside Luo Zhihong, frowned after staring blankly for a moment.
He held considerable authority and was responsible for finding promising talents among the city-level teams under Northern Hubei Province, then recommending them for special recruitment and training. But the problem was that his coaching ability and professional expertise were actually quite mediocre. He had entered the provincial team entirely because of his family background.
So he was annoyed. He had seen Wang Chao's strange move just now, but he had not understood it...
For the moment, he could not tell whether it was random nonsense or a new technique.
As for asking Luo Zhihong?
A provincial-team coach asking a city-team coach?
He could not afford to lose that kind of face!
So he immediately started cursing. "Nonsense! Nonsense! What kind of ridiculous stance is that? Did he come up with it on the spot? Did he just make it up? Is this thing... systematic? A wild player is still a wild player, always coming up with these attention-seeking tricks!"
Luo Zhihong, however, was carefully savoring that shot and said thoughtfully, "Director Jiang, I don't think that was just attention-seeking. We can study that movement properly afterward."
"Old Luo, why are you starting to believe in this folk stuff too?"
Jiang Long stubbornly doubled down, putting on a pained expression. "When we attended sports school, our teachers told us all about this, didn't they? Those messy folk methods are not standardized or scientific. They play all kinds of flashy tricks, but we cannot learn from them, or we'll go down the wrong path..."
Luo Zhihong knew how stubborn he was and did not argue further. He merely said, "Let's keep watching."
But Jiang Long was still dissatisfied. He snorted and said, "Wu Li has problems too. He actually got fooled by such an exaggerated movement. Looks like he needs more training."
Hehe, take a guess. What technique was that?
Here's a hint: it's relatively obscure.
If someone guesses correctly before eight tomorrow morning, there'll be an extra chapter.
—
Thanks to "Li Guiqun" for the tip.
Before you continue