That's it!
Gao Wen jerked upright from the washstand, water streaming from his face. Fresh oxygen rushed into his lungs, bringing with it a sharp coolness. The turmoil and excitement swirling in his mind slowly settled. In the water-speckled mirror, a young face looked back at him—familiar, yet strangely foreign.
His damp black hair hung down like strands of seaweed. He ran his fingers through it, pushing it back. His features were fully revealed now—sharp brows, well-defined brow bones, the faintest hint of stubbornness and wildness. His outline was clear, youthful, alive—eighteen.
It had been a long time since Gao Wen had seen this version of himself.
At eighteen, he had been a prodigy—a rising star everyone had their eyes on. He had once believed he could win Grand Slams, become world number one. But reality had been cruel. The sharp fire in his eyes had gradually dulled, and one day, it was gone altogether.
Yet the reflection staring back at him now was different.
His eyes no longer held that naive, untamed light. Instead, beneath their calm sharpness lay steadiness, experience—perhaps even a trace of weariness, as if they carried the fatigue of late nights spent working overtime.
That paradox—the youth of his face and the maturity in his eyes—finally made Gao Wen certain.
He had really returned.
From 2021… back to 2013.
Back to his first year of college.
It was still the golden age of tennis's "Big Four." Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray dominated the world, suppressing the emerging post-90s generation. The players born after 1995 were still too young to challenge them. Fans might have complained about the lack of new faces, but for true lovers of the sport, every clash among the Four was a gift.
Technically, 2021 to 2013 was only seven years apart. But to Gao Wen, it felt like a different lifetime.
After living through the chaos of 2020 and 2021, time itself seemed warped—bent out of shape. He needed a moment to breathe, to truly process everything.
After telling McDonald he needed a break, Gao Wen slipped away to the bathroom. He splashed cold water over his face again and again until the last traces of shock faded. The cool, grounded sensation steadied him, and his scattered thoughts began to align.
The system.
That strange, glowing text.
He took a long breath, steadied his heartbeat, and looked into the mirror once more. With his reason fully returned, he focused inward, silently calling it forth from the depths of his mind.
At once, a faint blue interface shimmered into existence across his vision.
"Tennis Training Master."
The first screen was neatly divided into two halves.
On the left, his personal information:
Name: Gao Wen
Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Birthday: November 11, 1995
Dominant Hand: Right
Height: 193 cm
Weight: 83 kg
On the right, four main panels appeared—three for attributes, and one blank for future functions.
Physical Attributes: 52
Technical Attributes: 63
Mental Attributes: 70
Each panel contained subcategories represented by bar charts rather than numbers—enough to show relative differences, though fine distinctions were hard to see.
In Physical Attributes, endurance ranked highest, followed by flexibility; the weakest were strength and explosiveness.
In Technical Attributes, anticipation topped the list, followed by backhand, while serve and forehand lagged behind.
As for Mental Attributes, the four subcategories—tactics, focus, resilience, and clutch play—were all fairly balanced, with tactics slightly in the lead.
Even without precise numbers, the overall profile already painted a clear picture of his playing style.
Gao Wen was born in a small coastal city in southeastern China. As a child, he was restless—always running, full of wild energy. His parents decided he needed an outlet, and since his mother had adored Andre Agassi, she suggested the then-unfashionable sport of tennis.
To everyone's surprise, he turned out to be a natural.
Just as the stats suggested, Gao Wen's body was not built for raw power. He was lean, lacking upper-body strength, which made his serve and forehand weaker. Because of that, he had developed a reliable two-handed backhand—his left hand compensating for what his right arm lacked in strength.
Yet his footwork and backhand control were exceptional—fluid, precise, instinctive.
Tennis, unlike football or basketball, is not about direct physical confrontation. It's a duel of rhythm and balance, where strength, timing, and strategy must coexist. Body composition mattered less than harmony between motion and control.
Take Novak Djokovic, for example—188 cm, 80 kg. Not bulky, but perfectly proportioned for the sport.
Gao Wen's physique, at 193 cm and 83 kg, was actually quite good for tennis. What he lacked was power and explosiveness—qualities that influenced both his technique and tactics.
But his true gift lay elsewhere.
He had a remarkable sense of the ball—and a sublime touch.
The sense of the ball is an intuitive understanding of its flight, spin, and rhythm—an ability to read its path even before it arrives. It's what makes players like Roger Federer seem almost prescient.
The touch refers to how a player connects with the ball through the racket—the delicate control of the small muscles in the wrist and arm. Tennis, at its core, is about rotation and force: how to read, absorb, and return that force in an instant. Players like Agnieszka Radwańska, once ranked No. 4 in the world, embodied that genius.
Ball sense and touch—these cannot be taught. They are gifts, rare and precious, invisible in statistics yet decisive on the court.
And beyond that, Gao Wen possessed something equally rare: tactical intelligence.
He could read the game.
Even as a beginner, he showed instinctive skill in analyzing rallies, spotting openings, and adapting on the fly. He played not just with his body, but with his mind.
That was how he compensated for his physical limitations—and how, once upon a time, he had carved out his place on the court.