Chennai: Hyeon Chung of South Korea caused the first upset of the Chennai Open 2017 with a 6-3, 7-5 win over last year’s finalist Croatian Borna Coric here on Monday. Coric wouldn’t have expected that he would endure such a torrid time against a qualifier.
The Croatian lost his first service game of the season but he immediately broke back to restore normality. But the Korean, ranked 104 in the world, came back roaring with another break, in the fifth game. Then all Chung had to do was hold serve for the rest of the set and he did better breaking again in the ninth game to close out the set 6-3.
Playing in his first tournament since a knee injury, Coric looked far from his best but managed to get the breakthrough in the ninth game of the second set for a 5-4 lead but dropped serve immediately after his forehand went wide. Chung stepped up on the pedal to force another break to seal the match. The Korean will play Israeli Dudi Sela next.
Chung said he focused on every single point. “I was just trying to make Coric play long rallies,” he added. Coric blamed his serve for losing the match. “I missed a couple of important points because of my serve,” he said.
Earlier, Daniil Medvedev finished the first match of the Chennai Open 2017 in double quick time. The Russian put out Thiago Monteiro 6-3, 6-3 with the ease of swatting a fly.
Medvedev, whose biggest ally was his massive serve, set the tone for the match breaking his Brazilian opponent’s serve in the third and fifth game. Meanwhile, he also went through his service games like a breeze, winning most of his first serve points. Although Monteiro put up a fight by breaking Medvedev when he was trailing 1-4 but couldn’t prevent the Russian from wrapping up the set in a little under 45 minutes. Both players initially struggled with the serve due to the unusual windy conditions
Monteiro seemed to find his rhythm in the second set as he exchanged long rallies but he dropped serve in the fourth game to give Medvedev a 3-1 lead. Monteiro let an advantage slip through his fingers.
While both players had the same first service percentage, Medvedev won 33 points from 46. He sealed the match in one hour and 36 minutes to go through to the round of 16. The Russian will face the winner of the match between Moldovan Radu Albot and Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan.
Results: D. Medvedev bt Monteiro 6-3, 6-3; S. Darcis bt N. Mektic 6-2, 6-3; D. Sela bt D. Dzumhur 6-2, 6-2; H. Chung bt B. Coric 6-3, 7-5. Doubles: J. Melzer/R.Olivo bt A. Begemann/Y. Lu 4-6, 7-6(3), 11-9.
Order of play from 5.05 p.m.: Centre Court: Aljaz Bedne vs Guillermo Garcia lopez, Ramkumar Ramanathan vs Yuki Bhambri, Mikhail Youzhny vs Saketh Myneni. Court 1: Renzo Olivo vs Casper Ruud, Benoit Paire vs Konstantin Kravchuk. Doubles: Jonathan Elrich/ Scott Lipsky vs James Cerenttani/ Philipp Oswald. Court 2: 6 p.m.: Radu Albot vs Yen-hsun Lu, Rogerio Dutra Silva vs Dusan Lajovic.
