The Prince of Tennis: My tennis skills come from Naruto

Chapter 138 Tezuka: Seigaku is a thing of the past

(However, Tezuka Kunimitsu declined the captaincy that was offered to him directly, saying that he wanted to personally subdue the discontented members of the Yamabuki Tennis Club before becoming captain. Therefore, Banta Mikiya chose to respect Tezuka's wishes, but said that the match was not an option at the moment, and that Tezuka's left hand had to be healed in Germany first, after which Tezuka would then be free to act.)

After the first round of the competition, the schools that were assigned to the other half of the bracket not only learned about their opponents in the semifinals, but also found out about their opponents' previous rounds of matches.

On the bus back from St. Rudolph College, Guan Yuechu stroked his chin, thinking to himself:

Tsk, this is a bit annoying. I didn't expect his ominous premonition to actually come true. Their St. Rudolf actually ran into Hyotei Academy, the strongest team in the other half of the bracket, in the semifinals.

I have to say I'm a little envious of Yamabuki. They faced Yinhua in the semifinals, which was a much easier match.

Although Yinhua is also a veteran goalkeeper, its strength is worlds apart from Hyotei's, and it doesn't have any particularly outstanding players this year.

Sigh, St. Rudolph really drew the worst possible lot.

Because of Hyotei Academy, what they displayed in the first round was not just victory, but a devastating dominance, and their first team, with the very front-line players from Hyotei, hadn't even played yet—

In short, their strength and the shadowy presence they wield are enough to send chills down the spines of any team about to face them.

Guan Yuechu sighed deeply, but then smiled. Fortunately, by observing Hyotei's four matches against other schools, he had collected data on Hyotei's players other than the top six, and had also figured out Hyotei's coaching style of tactical deployment.

However, St. Rudolph Academy had not shown its full strength in previous external competitions.

So Hyotei shouldn't take them too seriously, which explains the situation.

Hmph, Mizuki is preparing to seize the opportunity to teach Hyotei what it means to underestimate an opponent—that's a big no-no.

Of course, it doesn't matter if the plan doesn't succeed, since they are currently ranked in the top four, which means they have already qualified for the Kanto Tournament.

Meanwhile, on the return bus from Yamabuki Middle School, Inui Sadaharu pushed up his black-rimmed white glasses. As someone who had made data tennis his career path, he was the most well-informed person, whether at Seigaku or now at Yamabuki.

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Therefore, he learned very quickly that Seigaku had been eliminated in the first round by Hyotei.

This is truly gratifying!

Inui Sadaharu couldn't help but sigh, and then he hurriedly told Tezuka Kunimitsu about it. This good news had to be shared with the Tezuka family as soon as possible!

After sending the message, the joy in Inui Sadaharu's eyes was quickly replaced by solemnity. Although Yamabuki and Hyotei had both reached the semifinals, compared to Hyotei's perfect 6-0 record—winning all three matches 6-0 except for the first-round match which had to go to five sets, leaving their opponents no chance to even see their second-ranked singles player—Yamabuki was still somewhat lacking. Two of their four matches were 3-1.

Their doubles and singles teams have too many weaknesses. The level of the senior players in the Sansui team is indeed far inferior to his and Fuji's. Even many of the current players like Aaron are not as good as them. As for the Tei family, they don't even have the qualifications to compare.

So it's really hard to play, really hard to win. If Tei were here, he and Fuji would cooperate well and maybe they could win two more games. If he and Aaron cooperated and won another doubles game, Yamabuki would win. But Tei isn't here—Inui Sadaharu rationally felt that they really couldn't beat Hyotei, this behemoth.

Forget it, let's wait until the Hand family returns before discussing anything else.

Well, Inui Sadaharu never considered the possibility that their Yamabuki team might lose to Ginka Junior High, since he hadn't heard of any outstanding players from Ginka this year.

At 1:40 PM in Germany, Kunimitsu Teya saw the message sent by Sadaharu Inui.

Kunimitsu rubbed his fingers against the phone screen a couple of times. Although he wasn't too surprised that Seigaku was eliminated in the first round, after all, Seigaku almost didn't even make it into the tournament.

But seeing the name Seigaku still stirred up a complex mix of emotions in him.

Kunimitsu Teya slowly shook his head, but that was all in the past.

Meanwhile, Hyotei, despite their crushing victory in the first round of the Metropolitan Tournament, continued their daily training without any relaxation.

A week passed by amidst the unwavering passion of the Hyotei team in their training.

The second week marked the official start of the second round of the competition.

According to intelligence, the first-year captain of St. Rudolf, Seki Hatsuki, and several other first-year players in the tennis club, such as Akazawa Yoshiro, are not weak.

Therefore, Taro made certain considerations in arranging his troops, and for the sake of stability, he sent out most of the players from his team.

Doubles 2: Kiyosumi Sengoku & Jin Akutsu Doubles 1: Shuichiro Oishi & Eiji Kikumaru Singles 3: Jusaburo Mori Singles 2: Keigo Atobe Singles 1: Yo Kamiya Both doubles 1 and doubles 2 are considered training matches, especially the doubles 1 lineup. Taro felt that Oishi and Kikumaru had great potential as a pair, because their teamwork improved noticeably with each match.

So, maybe—

Taro's eyes revealed a hint of anticipation. Perhaps Oishi and Kikumaru would one day be able to touch the legendary skill of doubles: "Synchro," and then become an indestructible and unreachable mountain for Hyotei's doubles team.

The reason for pairing Sengoku Kiyosumi and Akutsu Jin together is that Taro believes that although Sengoku's tennis skills need improvement at present, his dynamic power makes him an excellent point-caller. Before Akutsu's skills are comparable to Mori's, his explosiveness and stamina are the most suitable match for Sengoku's abilities.

The singles lineup from one to three is a safety net, meaning that even if St. Rudolf wins the first two doubles matches, they absolutely cannot win the next three singles matches.

Although, according to intelligence, the St. Rudolf team has the highest proportion of regional-level players, there are one or two players who are not even at the regional level.

Only a small group of players reached the Kanto level, and even the strongest were not as strong as Shinobu. So there was no need to send out the top three teams from Hyotei, all of whom were national-level. However, after witnessing the battle of wits and courage in the selection of players for the three teams' competition during the training camp, Taro felt that being steady was indeed a very good quality.