Australian Open: Professor Chung calls for the Maestro

Hyeon Chung is the first Korean to reach the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament. There, the greatest possible task awaits the high-flyer with the striking spectacles: Roger Federer.

Actually, Hyeon Chung should have been a football player. When he was still a child, an ophthalmologist recommended to his parents that the son should concentrate on the color green to do something about his visual impairment (short-sightedness, astigmatism). For a long time, father and mother Chung considered how to proceed with the doctor’s advice. Then they decided: Tennis, the eye-catching yellow felt ball – that would somehow be enough to strengthen the eyes,”I loved tennis from the very first moment,”says Chung today. The man who is the sensationalist, especially at the Australian Open.

And the player who wants to stand in the way of a certain Roger Federer with his 21 year-old age group on Friday – in his first Grand Slam semi-final:”It’s cool to finally play against him,”says Chung. Chung, who won 6-4,7-6 and 6-3 against US-American Tennys Sandgren on Wednesday in the surprise pros’ duel, is an unusual character. Not only because he always wears compact sports glasses, but also because he is clichédly called a “professor” in the gaming community. But also because you don’t see the stocky youngster, how extremely supple and skillful he flits over the Centre Courts, almost like a highly topical, revised version of the movement artist Novak Djokovic. Against him, against the long-time dominator of the industry, he won the game of his life on Monday in the last sixteen, after which he received the well-earned compliment from Djokovic that he “simply played unbelievably”.

Curious, but true: especially in hand-eye coordination, the young South Korean seems to have inhumane abilities:”He obviously sees the balls as good as if they were as big as balloons,”said Paul Annacone, former coach of the industry leader Pete Sampras. Chung left at the tender age of 13 to pursue his dream of a great tennis career. For three years he trained far away from home and his family in the famous talent factory of Nick Bollettieri in Bradenton (Florida), then he returned to South Korea, physically and mentally invigorated,”It was a tough apprenticeship. But it’s also an ideal school to prepare me for the challenges of the tennis tour,”says Chung. Early on in his career, he competed in the Challenger series, won his first cup at the age of 18 and then won seven more tournaments.

“He’s always been a very grown-up guy. One who knew exactly what he wanted and did,”says Neville Godwin, his South African coach. By 2015, his colleagues had already voted him the “Most Improved Player”, the player who had made the most progress in the season. A beauty flaw: Chung couldn’t receive the trophy himself, as he had just arrived from the South Korean military. Now, however, he is responsible for the euphoria and dream scenarios of the first national Grand Slam champion back home – even more than the only world-class player to date, Hyung-Taik Lee, who made it to 36th place in the charts. Chung has greater potential, he will already be approaching the top 20 after these Grand Slam festivals, the “professor”who had won the “NextGen”final in Milan at the end of the 2017 season. It was his first major title, and it was also an initial impetus to trust his strengths and qualities even more,”a breakthrough moment”, says Godwin, the coach. In fact, Chung plays in Melbourne as if there were no opponents to fear.

“Boris Becker, Melbourne champion of 1991 and 1996, says,” You don’t see him afraid of big names, he’s a guy you just have to like,”and especially against Djokovic, the idol from his own childhood and youth days, Chung played it light-heartedly, sometimes with breathtaking self-evidentness. In any case, no player appeared who had to hope for success in an indefinite morning. But like one who had already arrived in the power play of the powerful. What Chung occasionally makes a little effort is fluent English, the language of the travelling circus. But he is also working on it, lastly he watched a lot of US series like “Prison Break” or “Modern Family” to make himself more understandable. Against Sandgren, he sifted out three match points on Wednesday because he was “thinking about what I’d like to say in the interview with the winner”, and then he recalled the essentials, the direct hits on Centre Court. The perfect expression next to it, the right vocabulary, you can wait a bit if necessary.