Taiwan’s Yang Tsung-hua came back from being a break down in the third set to upend US hopeful Rhyne Williams 6-3, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3 in the quarter-finals of the US Open boys singles, keeping him on target to win a second grand slam junior singles crown.
The top-seeded Yang, who complained of a sore right shoulder after his three-set win over Thailand’s Peerakit Siributwong in the round of 16 on Thursday, said he felt much better on Friday.
His only lapse came late in the second set and early in the third, when the tall American, seen as a rising star, won the tie-breaker and took a 2-0 lead in the final set.
“That didn’t have anything to do with the shoulder, “ Yang said. “I just played badly. My forehand wasn’t consistent because I was leaning back too much.”
But the 17-year-old Yang, who appeared to rush as the match seemed to get away from him, quickly regained his composure and imposed a superiority over Williams that had been clearly evident in the first set.
He won six of the final seven games to clinch a berth in the semi-finals, where he will face third-seeded Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria.
Yang became the first male Taiwanese player to win a grand slam singles event of any kind when he won the French Open boys singles earlier this year.
Yang and partner Hsieh Cheng-peng, the winners of the boys doubles at this year’s Australian Open and Wimbledon and seeded seventh in New York, lost in the US Open boys doubles quarter-finals on Thursday to second seeds and French Open champions Henri Kontinen of Finland and Christopher Rungkat of Indonesia 6-2, 6-4.
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