China has long been the sleeping giant of men’s tennis, but on Monday the giant stirred as Shanghai trailblazer Zhang Zhizhen advanced to the second round of Roland Garros.
One of three Chinese men in the draw, Zhang became the first from the nation to win a main draw match at Roland Garros in 86 years after Serbian opponent Dusan Lajovic retired due to illness when trailing 6-1, 4-1.
Compatriots Shang Juncheng and Wu Yibing bowed out in defeat, but 26-year-old Zhang has a big chance to go further when he takes on Argentine qualifier Thiago Agustin Tirante for a place in the third round.
Photo: AFP
That would bring him a step closer to the fourth-round mark set by Kho Sin-Kie in 1936. Kho, who was born in colonial-era Indonesia, but represented China in Davis Cup, also reached the third round in 1937.
“Last year .... even quallies [qualifiers] I couldn’t get in,” world No. 71 Zhang told reporters.
“This year I’m enjoying (the) first win here. We have so many [people] waiting for us to get [the] first win,” he said.
In the modern era, Chinese tennis has been dominated by women, with twice Grand Slam champion Li Na becoming the country’s first major winner at Roland Garros in 2011.
The men’s game has been a much slower burn, with Wu Di becoming China’s first singles entrant at a Grand Slam main draw in the professional era in 2013 when he lost in the first round of the Australian Open.
It took nearly another decade for a Chinese man to claim a main draw win, with Wu Yibing breaking a 63-year drought on the way to the third round at last year’s US Open.
Teenager Shang followed that by reaching the second round of the Australian Open in January on his Grand Slam debut as the youngest player in the draw.
Zhang, the oldest of the Chinese trio and a relatively late bloomer, has kept the streak alive after setting a number of tennis firsts for the country in the past few months.
In October last year, he became the first Chinese man to crack the top 100 in the ATP’s world rankings and this month became the first to reach the quarter-finals of an ATP Masters 1000 tournament at the Madrid Open.
“Now we are passing the quallies and coming to the main draw,” Zhang said of the Grand Slam breakthroughs.
“That’s one step, again, like a step forward. [Chinese] girls have a lot of people playing. Now we [men] are more and more,” he said. “Yeah, we are trying to catch the girls.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB