Wu Yibing becomes first Chinese man to reach the US Open third round since 1881
The third round of the US Open is the round in where the world’s top players make their last stand before deciding whether to try a career in tennis or retire early. That is a battle that all players experience and that can’t be said too often. It is a moment that we usually don’t see in tennis because our expectations are too low. But even so, this is a moment of pure drama and no one is more dramatic than the winner of the match, which happened this afternoon in the third round of the US Open.
Wu Yibing of China is ranked 11th in the world. He is a very talented tennis player. It has been widely reported recently that he is the first to reach the third round of an international tennis tournament since the legendary Herbert Taylor, who did so during the 1936 Wimbledon and then again during the first, second and third round of the US Open in 1881. At the moment, he is in a battle with American player Steve Johnson who is ranked 19th in the world.
Today was a pretty solid match from start to finish but it was not easy to predict what was going to happen after the second set started. For the second set, Wu began aggressively, attacking the baseline with a powerful approach. When he got to service, he did not give up his shot but instead took control of the game. And when the games were drawn, he was just too far behind in the game. The difference in the two games was huge and the game that Wu dominated was the one in which he made the big run. It took him to 5 games off Johnson which, if he can come up with that against anyone, would be a big accomplishment for him as a player.
But he did not. Instead, he served the match out and he and Johnson have met four times in the previous seven matches, losing the two matches that they have played and losing all three times that they have been up and down. And he has played