This foreign teacher named Roger was, after all, only a skilled amateur.
As for Meng Hao, in his previous life he had joined his university’s tennis club and already had a certain foundation. On top of that, after twice “experiencing a legendary perspective,” both his skill and experience had improved by leaps and bounds.
Now it was Meng Hao’s own service game. Crushing his opponent was absolutely a piece of cake.
Love game!
In this service game of his, he took four points in a row. Two were aces, and one was a service winner.
On the remaining serve, the male foreign teacher barely managed to get his racket on it, but the return was slow and flat.
As the tennis ball drifted lazily over the net, Meng Hao moved like the wind, charging straight up to the net. Without waiting for the ball to land, he killed it with a single swing.
In Meng Hao’s service game, this male foreign teacher from Switzerland, who fancied himself a skilled amateur, had no strength to fight back at all. He was completely crushed.
At this moment, Roger stood behind the baseline of the tennis court with his hands on his hips, panting heavily.
Ever since coming to China, he had often gone to local tennis clubs to arrange matches with skilled amateurs, but he had never encountered a predicament like today’s.
This high school student was too strong!
“Young man, you’ve studied tennis for at least five years, right? Otherwise there’s no way you could be at this level!” Roger shouted.
“No, I’ve only studied tennis for two and a half years!” Meng Hao shouted back, holding up two fingers.
“Two and a half years? Impossible. God, that’s absolutely impossible! With your level, how could you have only studied for two and a half years?” Roger’s face was full of disbelief.
Meng Hao did not answer the question. Instead, he asked, “Roger, are we still playing?”
“Of course!” Roger nodded. “It’s my service game now. I’ll show you what I can do.”
The fellow clenched his fists, looking utterly confident.
Losing to a high school student in front of two ladies was certainly not something to be proud of.
Meng Hao crouched slightly, holding the racket in both hands, fully focused, his gaze fixed firmly ahead.
Bang!
The shot hit the net!
Roger was indeed very strong, but using too much force caused his shot to catch the net.
If that serve had gone in, Meng Hao also felt that the current him would have had a hard time dealing with it.
Roger prepared for his second serve, while Meng Hao quietly shuffled a few steps forward.
Meng Hao did not notice that on the volleyball court next door, a volleyball had slowly rolled over. Then a youthful girl with twin pigtails jogged over and picked it up.
“Teacher Yu? And… Meng Hao? Why are they here?” A few beads of sweat ran down the girl’s fair and delicate face.
“Shen Rongyu?” Yu Yan had also spotted this outstanding girl from her class.
This girl just happened to be playing volleyball here.
“Meng Hao knows how to play tennis?” Shen Rongyu looked curiously at this male classmate of hers.
Although Meng Hao was quite sunny-looking, with regular features, his academic performance was ordinary after all. At most, he would occasionally shine a little during the school sports meet, so Shen Rongyu had never really paid much attention to him.
And yet he was playing tennis with the school’s foreign teacher!
Although Shen Rongyu had a cousin who knew how to play tennis, she herself did not understand the sport very well. Still, under the overwhelming bombardment of the media, she had heard of tennis stars like Li Na, Sharapova, and Federer.
After all, tennis had been extremely popular in Huaxia these past few years.
“Ah—” Suddenly, Shen Rongyu covered her cherry-like little mouth.
The male foreign teacher sped up his second serve, though he added some spin.
Meng Hao merely turned sideways, and then his racket lashed out like a whip.
A ball at this speed, meeting his now-elevated forehand, was purely being served up on a platter.
With a bang, Meng Hao struck a straight-line forehand.
A streak of green flashed past, and the tennis ball slowly rolled toward the far side.
Return ace!
Roger clutched his head, his face blank.
Had he run into an all-you-can-eat ace package today?
His opponent either served aces directly or hit return aces.
He felt that when he was learning Chinese, his mentality had not collapsed, but today, after playing a bit of tennis, his mentality was practically about to explode.
As for the female foreign teacher Mina, her mouth was full of “oh, yes,” “oh, my god,” and “unbelievable.”
Did you foreigners really not have any other vocabulary?
Roger was only a skilled amateur, and serving was not even his specialty.
Especially under today’s circumstances, this guy was a little impatient and wanted to establish an advantage on the very first shot through powerful serves.
But the more he did this, the lower his first-serve percentage became.
On the second point of Roger’s service game, he actually double-faulted.
In a tennis match, unless your serve clips the net and lands in, allowing you to retake it indefinitely, two faults means you lose a point.
The male foreign teacher was so angry that he picked up his racket and smashed it against the ground.
It seemed he truly wanted to win, yet simply could not.
On the third point, his luck finally exploded once, and his powerful serve went in.
This heavy, forceful serve also made Meng Hao’s heart tighten involuntarily.
His racket touched the tennis ball, but it still flew far away.
Serve!
It really was a cannon-like serve!
Meng Hao suddenly thought of something.
In the professional tennis world, quite a few white and black players had decent serves, and many times, they relied on their serves to solve a fair number of problems.
By comparison, many Asian players’ serving ability was not quite as outstanding.
After all, due to limitations in physical talent, they had to improve in various technical aspects such as movement and baseline play.
However, the male foreign teacher before him was an amateur, and his first-serve percentage was not that high.
Sure enough, Roger was worthy of being a battle-tested skilled amateur.
He also knew that the successful first serve just now had been purely a burst of luck.
After calming down, Roger lowered the speed of his first serve to ensure his success rate.
Meng Hao’s positioning and return motion were quite professional, and he returned the ball very well.
This time, however, he changed tactics and actually adopted a slice.
When he had joined his university tennis team in his previous life, he had liked using slices very much, because they could reduce physical exertion and save some energy.
For example, in today’s men’s professional tennis world, there was a top-ten player named Dimitrov who was extremely good at all kinds of slices. They had practically become one of his regular weapons.
However, what this guy was most famous for was two-timing—dating Sharapova and Serena Williams, two of the WTA’s biggest stars, at the same time.
The two women fighting over one man had also become the biggest gossip topic in today’s tennis world.
For many Chinese boys who loved basketball, whenever they talked about Sharapova, they would always think of former Lakers player Vujacic.
But in truth, Sharapova herself was even more obsessed with Dimitrov, who was also a tennis player. She even did not hesitate to trade barbs with Serena Williams from afar at press conferences because of him.
“OUT!” the female foreign teacher called.
It turned out that Meng Hao had only exchanged three slices back and forth before forcing the male foreign teacher to hit the ball out of bounds.
A slice with a very low flight path, fast speed, and fierce spin was simply the bane of amateur players.
Roger had no way to deal with it at all and quickly lost another point, losing his own service game.
In his own service game, he had only taken a single point.
“Young man, there’s no need to play the third game. I concede!” Roger raised both hands, signaling his surrender.
The standardness of this surrendering gesture made Meng Hao unable to help suspecting that this man was a French-speaking Swiss.
……