腾老道 on the great performance from the Korean at Wimbledon Championships:

The 2nd round match between the South Korea No. 1 H-T Lee and the Aussie mongoose Lleyton Hewitt turned out to be an exciting and entertaining encounter with the two players locked at 2:2 after more than 3 hours play before the light got too dark for the day.

The 4 sets were closely fought with all but one set decided by tie-breaks, the scores are 7:6 (7-5? couldn't remember the exact score now), 2:6, 6:7 (6-8) and 7:6 (7-5). The 3rd and 4th sets were extremely similar with one player being broken at 5:5, and the other one having the chance to serve for the set (or for the match) at 6:5 but only to be broken back immediately to face the tie-break. And in both tie-breaks the Korean leading 3-1, 4-2, 5-2 and 6-3; somehow those two sets were shared. Lee had the chance in the 3rd, breaking Hewitt in the 11th game and serving for the set at 6:5. Lee then had 3 set points in the tie-break at 6-3 with 2 serves still to come, but remarkably Hewitt won the next 5 points and snatched the tie-break by 8-6. In the 4th set, Lee looked dead and buried when he was broken at 5:5, Hewitt's service had been solid throughout the set, however Lee refused to surrender and broke Hewitt at 15, and then won the tie-break 7-5 (Hewitt almost came back again from 3-6 down in the tie-break!).

Ranked just outside 100 on the APT list, the Korean did surprise lot of people, including the 6th seed Hewitt (and 腾老道也暗暗吃惊), by matching the Aussie shots for shots, and at times making the Aussie looking rather inferior. Lee plays single-handed and his backhand, especially the
down-the-line flat shot, gave Hewitt endless headaches throughout the match. The Korean also did well in serves and service returns, having higher 1st serve success rate and service return-in percentage than Hewitt. Hewitt was the former Wimbledon champion and is the 6th seed this year, and he had demolished James Blake at the final of Queens (Queens Club, London, where they hold the most important grass tennis tournament just before Wimbledon). I have to say that it is not a mean feat by the Korean Lee to hold Hewitt at 2:2 on the showpiece court at the grand slam championships.

The match will resume on Friday, win or loss, Korean H-T Lee has showed to the average Asian players that it is not a mammoth task to be competitive at the highest level. Chinese ladies are doing well at Wimbledon this year (with 李娜、彭帅和郑洁进入第三轮即三十二强), but men's game in China needs
to be given a higher profile and also to be better funded, and hopefully we could see some budding Chinese young talents competing at ATP tournaments in the near future.