Korea’s 26 year old Kim Jung Hoon caused one of the major upsets on
the third day of play at the H.I.S. World Championships in Yokohama; in
the second round of the Men’s Singles event he beat Vladimir Samsonov
of Belarus, the no.3 seed.
After a fine win there can be a
reaction, retaining form can be difficult; the question was how would
the Korean react one day later on Friday 1st May 2009?
The answer was in the positive; Kim Jung Hoon retained his form to win a thrilling seven games duel against China’s Zhang Chao.
Recovery
Kim Jung Hoon recovered from a three games to one deficit and saved one match point in the decider before securing victory.
The Korean succeeded 6-11, 7-11, 11-8, 10-12, 11-5, 11-5, 13-11.
Own Medicine
Furthermore, he won by giving Zhang Chao a taste of his own medicine.
Twenty-four
year old, Zhang Chao favours his forehand and is particularly strong
playing forehand topspins from the backhand side of the table. However,
in the seventh game on more than one occasion, he left Kim Jung Hoon
flat footed as he used his backhand from the backhand court to quickly
switch the direction of play wide to the Kim Jung Hoon forehand.
The ploy left the Korean stranded.
Exactly the Same
However,
at 11-all, Kim Jung Hoon did exactly the same to Zhang Chao and then
again he repeated the dose to bring matters to a conclusion.
Zhang
Chao stared in disbelief; he’d fallen for the sucker punch twice in a
row and at the most crucial stage of the duel. Kim Jung Hoon
acknowledged his supporters with a salute of success.
"I knew he liked to play forehands from the backhand", explained Kim Jung Hoon. "So, I decided to switch the play quickly."
It proved a wise move.
Difficulty
"The
greatest difficulty playing Zhang Chao was returning his service",
continued Kim Jung Hoon. "I tried to service as many times as I could
with backspin to try to make life easier for myself."
The
problem faced by Kim Jung Hoon was that Zhang Chao is the master of the
modern art of returning service by using the backhand.
He
moves forward to receive the short service with the forearm vertical
and then circumnavigates the racket around the ball. The result is that
the return has a mixture of both topspin and sidespin being more
difficult to effect against a backspin service.
Tired
"Yesterday
against Samsonov was a difficult match; today was equally difficult",
said Kim Jung Hoon. "However, I feel in good condition, I just kept
fighting; now I’m really tired."
No wonder, it was a gruelling contest.
Source: www.ittf.com
