After some morning rains the clouds cleared enough for the second round of the singles to commence in Busan, Korea. Greg was up against a Korean teenager, 19 year-old Yong-Kyu Lim, currently ranked 328, but who was the winner of this tournament last year. Lim did not drop a set in last year's tournament and beat Taipei's Yen-Hsun Lu, then ranked 91, in the final. So an interesting match-up.
Greg started well and was not troubled much on serve in the first set, managing to bring up a few opportunities against a nervous Lim, then breaking Lim to lead the set. Greg continued to hold serve comfortably and won the first set 6-4.
In the second Greg again created a few opportunities on Lim's serve but was not able to capitalise, games going with serve to 5-5. Lim was growing in confidence and the crowd were throwing their vocal one-sided support behind the local player, Lim going 6-5 up and forcing some errors from Greg to get him to 15-40. Greg rose to the challenge, winning 4 points in a row to snuff out the break opportunity, going to the tie-break at 6-6. Lim started the tie-break off well and, fired up, started tee-ing off at every opportunity and the shots were going in, breaking Greg twice to go 3-0, then holding for 5-0, eventually winning the tie-break 7-1. The scores were level at 1-set all.
With the impetus and vocal crowd with Lim, Greg had to re-focus and he responded, holding serve and then breaking Lim and holding to go 3-0 up. Greg then held serve well after that, games going with serve to 5-3. Greg served out the set 6-3, to win a hard fought match 6-4, 6-7(1), 6-3, beating the defending champion and advancing to the QF round, to be played on Friday (the 13th - lucky for some).
Greg started well and was not troubled much on serve in the first set, managing to bring up a few opportunities against a nervous Lim, then breaking Lim to lead the set. Greg continued to hold serve comfortably and won the first set 6-4.
In the second Greg again created a few opportunities on Lim's serve but was not able to capitalise, games going with serve to 5-5. Lim was growing in confidence and the crowd were throwing their vocal one-sided support behind the local player, Lim going 6-5 up and forcing some errors from Greg to get him to 15-40. Greg rose to the challenge, winning 4 points in a row to snuff out the break opportunity, going to the tie-break at 6-6. Lim started the tie-break off well and, fired up, started tee-ing off at every opportunity and the shots were going in, breaking Greg twice to go 3-0, then holding for 5-0, eventually winning the tie-break 7-1. The scores were level at 1-set all.
With the impetus and vocal crowd with Lim, Greg had to re-focus and he responded, holding serve and then breaking Lim and holding to go 3-0 up. Greg then held serve well after that, games going with serve to 5-3. Greg served out the set 6-3, to win a hard fought match 6-4, 6-7(1), 6-3, beating the defending champion and advancing to the QF round, to be played on Friday (the 13th - lucky for some).
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