Taiwan's representatives in the men's singles at Wimbledon had mixed fortunes on Tuesday. Jimmy Wang won a five set thriller against Igor Kunitsyn of Russia, but Lu Yen-hsun retired from his match against Max Mirnyi of Belarus in the third set after losing the opening two.
Wang proved more consistent than Kunitsyn in their five set marathon, making 45 unforced errors to his opponent's 59 in his 6-3, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 6-2 victory. He also got 65 percent of his first serves in as opposed to the Russian's 55 percent. However, he was made to work harder than he might have expected after winning the first two sets when Kunitsyn took the next two on tie breaks before running out of steam in the final set.
Wang has the chance to improve on his performance at the All England club last year when he plays veteran Swede Jonas Bjorkman in the next round.
PHOTO: AP
Wang, who reached the second round in his only other appearance at SW19, faces a tough contest against Bjorkman. The Swede has a good record at Wimbledon having reached the semi-final last year before losing to eventual champion Roger Federer.
The two have met once before, in the Wimbledon warm-up tournament at Queen's Club, London, last year, with Bjorkman winning 6-3, 6-3. The Swede, seeded No.19, is playing in his 15th Wimbledon championships while Wang is appearing in his third.
Taiwan's No.1 player Lu Yen-hsun fell foul of an old injury and was forced to retire in the third set of his match against 1.96m Belarusian Mirnyi.
Lu, who has reached the second round twice in his four appearances at Wimbledon never looked likely to repeat the feat this year against an opponent who has reached the fourth round of the tournament on three occasions, most recently last year. The Taoyuan-born 24-year-old lost the opening two sets 4-6, 3-6 before calling it a day at 1-2 down in the third.
In the women's singles, second seed Maria Sharapova was made to work harder than she had planned against Taiwan's Chan Yung-jan, but she eventually swept her aside 6-1 7-5 in the first round on Tuesday. The Russian 2004 champion raced to a 4-0 lead in the first set before her 51st-ranked opponent held her serve.
A series of unforced errors by Sharapova, combined with a fightback by 17-year-old Chan, produced a tighter second set in which the world No. 2 dropped her serve in the seventh game.
The 20-year-old showed little sign of the shoulder injury that sidelined her for two months this year, although she said cool weather at the London tournament was not helping.
Sharapova will face either Ekaterina Bychova or Severine Bremond in the second round.
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