Chung reaches semis; leg injury ends Nadal’s run
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA >> Serving for a spot in the Australian Open semifinals and with the score at 40love, Hyeon Chung started thinking how he might celebrate being the first Korean to reach the last four of a Grand Slam.
Not so fast. He hadn’t let up when upsetting No. 4 Alexander Zverev or six-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic en route to the quarterfinals, but he let his guard down for a few points against No. 97-ranked Tennys Sandgren.
He missed four match points in the last game and had to fend off two break points, including one in a 31-shot rally dominated by slice backhands, before finally beating Sandgren 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-3 at Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday (Australia time).
“In last game, I think at 40-love, I’m thinking what I had to do in ceremony or something like that,” he said, explaining how he got slightly ahead of himself. “After deuce, break point. I was like, no, nothing to do with ceremony. But just keep playing keep focused.”
Then he fully embraced the moment, joking with Jim Courier in an on-court TV interview, introducing the audience to his parents and his coach, and taking the microphone to speak in Korean to millions of new tennis fans back home.
The No. 58-ranked Chung is the lowest-ranked man to reach the Australian Open semifinals since Marat Safin in 2004. At 21, he’s also the youngest to reach the last four at a major since Marin Cilic did it here in 2010.
Two women who’ve been to this stage at a Grand Slam before will meet in the last four. Top-ranked Simona Halep recovered from an early break to win nine straight games in a 6-3, 6-2 win over No. 6 Karolina Pliskova and set up a semifinal match against 2016 champion Angelique Kerber, who routed U.S. Open finalist Madison Keys 6-1, 6-2.
Kerber has been the only Grand Slam singles champion in the women’s draw since her third-round win over Maria Sharapova. Two-time French Open finalist Halep has had a tougher road having to save match points in a thirdround win over Lauren Davis that finished 15-13 in the third to reach the semifinals at Melbourne Park for the first time.
Not that Chung’s run has been routine. After taking out Zverev and Djokovic, Chung could next face defending champion Roger Federer for a spot in the final. Federer was playing Tomas Berdych later Wednesday in the quarterfinals.
Until the last game, Chung had been simply too consistent for Sandgren, a 26-year-old American who had never won a match at a Grand Slam tournament or beaten a top 10 player until last week.
Sandgren’s unexpected run he beat 2014 champion Stan Wawrinka and No. 5 Dominic Thiem en route to the quarterfinals was overshadowed by heavy scrutiny of his Twitter account and his follows and retweets of far-right activists.
• One point after his medical timeout in the fourth set, Rafael Nadal went to the rear of the court to squat and do a kneeraise, trying to stretch out his injured right leg.
Three games later one point after his subsequent visit from the trainer Nadal had to delay Marin Cilic’s serve while trying to walk out the pain at the start of the fifth set.
After limping and wincing through two more games, and after failing to fend off a sixth break point, the 16-time major champion was out of the Australian Open.
The sixth-seeded Cilic advanced to his first semifinal in Australia since 2010 with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 2-0 victory Tuesday. He will next play 49th-ranked Kyle Edmund, who beat thirdranked Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to reach a Grand Slam semifinal for the first time.
“Tough moments not (for) the first time here,” Nadal said. “I’m a positive person, but today is an opportunity lost to be in a semifinal for a Grand Slam and fight for an important title for me.”