Lu Yen-hsun faces an uphill battle to progress at the French Open tennis championships which start today.
On paper, Taiwan’s sole representative in the singles tournaments at the second Grand Slam event of the year has been given a relatively kind first-round draw against world No. 125 Mathieu Montcourt.
However, the clay courts in Paris are an alien surface to the world No. 66, whose sole previous appearance at Roland Garros ended in a first-round defeat in 2007.
PHOTO: EPA
Lu has only two matches on clay under his belt this year, both ending in losses, the latest when he was unable to complete his match against Agustin Calleri at the Austrian Open a couple of weeks ago.
This was the latest example of a worrying trend for the 25-year-old who also missed a Davis Cup tie against Kazakhstan earlier this year through injury and was forced to retire from a match against Marco Chiudinelli with a back problem at a Challenger event in Tenerife, Spain, earlier this month.
Assuming Lu is able to complete the match in one piece, he’ll find the man on the other side of the net no pushover, despite having beaten him in straight sets in January at an indoor Challenger in Heilbronn, Germany.
Although Montcourt had to play in the qualifying tournament because of his lowly ranking, the Frenchman has twice reached the second round in Paris, most recently in 2007. He also reached the final of the clay court Challenger tournament in Bordeaux earlier this month.
Montcourt hit the headlines last year when he was suspended for five weeks for betting on matches. The Court of Arbitration for Sport found the Frenchman had bet a total of US$192 on 36 tennis events, though not on his own matches or at tournaments in which he was playing.
Taiwan’s three participants in last week’s singles qualifying tournaments all failed to reach the main draw.
In the men’s competition, last year’s junior singles champion, Yang Tsung-hua, found the step up to the senior ranks a tough one. Although he beat Spain’s Marc Lopez in the first round, he lost to another Spaniard, Santiago Ventura, in round two.
In the women’s tournament, Hsieh Su-wei suffered a first-round defeat by Youlia Fedossova of France, while Chan Chin-wei was another first-round casualty, losing to Neuza Silva of Portugal.
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