Zhe Li, Woong-Sun Jun advance into 2nd round – Beijing International Challengers 2011
Chinese wild card Zhe Li battled past American Nicholas Monroe 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 on Tuesday to book his place in the second round of 2011 Beijing International Challengers tournament here in Beijing, China.
Li made a slow start to the match as he took his time to settle down. Losing the first set 5-7 to the American, he needed an extra ordinary performance in the next sets to emerge victorious in the match. He did exactly that by
raising the level of his game as he displayed some top quality tennis in a match that lasted for more than 2 hours and 12 minutes on the hard courts of Beijing Tennis centre.
Monroe looked to attack his opponent right from the start. He adopted a very aggressive strategy and put his rival under extreme pressure with a break of serve early in the opening set. Li was also up for the challenge as he broke
straight back to even the game score at 3-3. The American had his second break opportunity in eleventh game of the set, which he converted successfully to take a tricky 6-5 lead, serving for the set. Showing no signs of nerves, he bagged his next service game
as well to grab 1-0 set score advantage.
Li made an astonishing come back in the following set. After both players held on to their first few serve games, the set entered a very exciting phase with both playing looking to break each other. The Chinese drew his first blood
in eight game of the set to take a crucial 5-3 lead. He then held on to his next service game to level the set score 1-1.
Having pressurised his opponent immensely, Li continued to play aggressively in the final set as well. Making the only serve break of the set, he moved to 4-2 lead. Holding on to his game score advantage till the end, he completed
an emphatic victory to move into the second round of the tournament.
Li served with control and accuracy and hit an impressive 63 per cent first serve. He was competitive in the serve return department as well with a share of 40 per cent points on his opponent’s serve.
In another match Korean tennis pro Woong-Sun Jun eased past Japanese Junn Mitsuhashi 6-4, 6-4 to move ahead at the tournament.
Jun started off strongly and played a very controlled match. With six serve aces, he hit his way out of trouble whenever he was tested. Mitsuhashi paid the heavy price for too many unforced errors.
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