Marathon month of events looms for Coleman Wong
Hong Kong’s Coleman Wong Chak-lam is gearing up for a busy April, with the 19-year-old tennis star taking on four competitions in as many weeks.
A strong performance in all of those tournaments could see him shoot up the world rankings, getting closer to accomplishing his target of breaking into the world’s top 150 by year’s end.
He is currently ranked 192, and there is an outside chance a good month could get him within sight of a spot at the Paris Olympics.
First up for the youngster is the Vitro Busan Open in South Korea, with the men’s singles round of 16 starting on Wednesday. The ATP Challenger series tournament runs until next Sunday.
Should Wong go all the way in Busan, he will be in for a tight turnaround, as the Gwangju Open Challenger, about 200km west of Busan, starts the following day.
Once the Hongkonger has wrapped up his tournaments in South Korea, he will move to the mainland for the Shenzhen Luohu Open Challenger on April 22.
Wong’s last appearance at the Shenzhen Challenger was a historic moment in his fledgling career.
He competed in the tournament’s maiden edition last October and secured his first ATP Challenger Tour main-draw win, beating China’s Xiao Linang 6-3, 7-6.
Wong then recorded victories over France’s Terence Atmane and Taiwan’s Huang Tsung-hao before then world No 110 and American Aleksandar Kovacevic pulled out, giving him a bye to his first ATP Challenger Final.
He subsequently lost to former world No 50, Australia’s James Duckworth 6-0, 6-1.
After the Shenzhen Challenger, Wong will head over to neighbouring Guangzhou for the Guangzhou Nansha International Challenger a week later.
Wong broke into the world top 200 last month when he made his debut appearance at an ATP 1000 tournament.
Despite losing to world No 35 Laslo Djere of Serbia in straight sets in the first round of the Miami Open, the rising star said it only made him “hungry for more” tennis at the top level.