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| Kwon Soon-woo, left, and Chung Hyeon of Korea celebrate their victory over Andre Goransson of Sweden and Ben McLachlan of Japan in the men's doubles quarterfinals at the ATP Eugene Korea Open at Olympic Park Tennis Center in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap |
The Korean doubles tandem of Chung Hyeon and Kwon Soon-woo advanced to the semifinals of the lone ATP tournament on home soil on Friday, winning a three-set thriller in front of loud partisan fans in the nation's capital.
Chung and Kwon defeated Andre Goransson of Sweden and Ben McLachlan of Japan 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 10-7, in the quarterfinals at the Eugene Korea Open at Olympic Park Tennis Center in Seoul.
In Saturday's semifinals, the two Koreans will face Nicolas Barrientos of Colombia and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela of Mexico, who had defeated another Korean team, Song Min-kyu and Nam Ji-sung, in the quarterfinals earlier Friday.
Chung and Kwon are the only remaining Korean players at the Korea Open, which is the first ATP tournament in Seoul since 1996.
Chung, the 2018 Australian Open semifinalist, is playing for the first time in two years after recovering from a back injury. Kwon, the highest-ranked Korean male singles player at No. 121, was eliminated in the round of 16 in the singles Thursday.
Chung and Kwon blew a 4-2 lead in the first set to drop to a tiebreak. They opened up a 4-1 lead thanks to a combination of Chung's winners and an opponent double fault. At 4-3, Kwon got down a nifty, around-the-net winner to give his team some breathing room, and the Koreans closed out the set when Goransson's return hit the net.
Chung and Kwon got broke to start the second set and found themselves down 5-1 in the blink of an eye. They forced deuce in the final game before going down 6-2.
In the 10-point tiebreaker for the third set, Goransson and McLachlan went up 3-1 when the Koreans kept missing their volleys left and right.
But then Goransson sent a couple of returns to the net to give the Korean team a 5-4 lead. The teams went back and forth before a McLachlan double fault gave Chung and Kwon an 8-6 lead.
After the teams traded points, Chung finished the match with a backhand winner that bounced past the two opposing players. (Yonhap)
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