Wong chases Paris dream at Korean event

Hong Kong’s Coleman Wong Chak-lam is poised for the second leg of his busy month of tennis at the Gwangju Open in South Korea, as the youngster tries to keep his dream of reaching the Paris Olympics alive.

Wong, 19, the tournament’s eighth seed, begins in the round of 32 against Tunisia’s Moez Echargui today.

Last week, Wong lost in the quarter-finals of the Busan Open 4-6, 6-3, 2-6 to South Korea’s Hong Seong-chan, who went on to reach the final. Before that, he had cruised through his round-of-32 and last-16 ties with straight-set victories over Belgium’s Alexander Blockx and Australia’s Blake Ellis, respectively.

His exploits on the ATP Challenger Tour have already helped his ranking, which could reach a career-high 182, according to the ATP’s live table.

The final of the Gwangju Open, also an ATP Challenger Tour event, will be played on Sunday. Once the Hongkonger has wrapped up his tournaments in South Korea, he will move on to the Shenzhen Luohu Open Challenger on April 22. The week after, Wong will play in the Guangzhou Nansha International Challenger.

The target for Wong is to rise as high up the world rankings as he can, because Olympic qualification will start to be determined within weeks. Those in the top 56 on June 10 can earn a spot, but as a country or region can send only its top four athletes per gender for singles competitions, players ranked lower can sometimes make it. At the Paris Games, 64 players will compete in each of the men’s and women’s singles competitions.

Besides the 56 decided by ranking, six slots are given to the finalists from the 2023 PanAmerican, Asian and African Games. Two slots will be reserved for Olympic or grand slam champions who did not qualify via other means but are still ranked in the world’s top 400, unless it exceeds their team’s quota.