Hong Kong’s Coleman Wong set to ‘sweat blood’ in bid to reach mainland China final
The 21-year-old topples home favourite Bu Yunchaokete to book Jiujiang semi-final clash with Sun Fajing on Saturday
Coleman Wong Chak-lam has been told he will have to “sweat blood” to beat the ominously in-form Sun Fajing on Saturday and reach the sixth Challenger Tour final of his career.
Emerging from a fallow 1½ months that Wong’s coach James Allemby put down to his player becoming “too result oriented”, the Hongkonger continued his charge in Jiujiang on Friday, overcoming home favourite Bu Yunchaokete 7-6, 7-6 in an absorbing quarter-final contest.
“Coleman would’ve most likely lost that match a couple of weeks ago, but the objective was for him to face every obstacle in the best possible way in terms of attitude and body language, and not get caught up in the result,” Allemby said.
“The real result was that he was able to say, ‘We’ve left the day a little better than we found it’.”
After a first set in which serve held sway, Wong, the world No 122, won five straight points from 1-1 in the tiebreak before wrapping it up 7-2.
World No 157 Bu capitalised on his first break point of the match in the eighth game of the second set, only for Wong, 21, to immediately respond in kind. From 5-5 in the tiebreak, Wong dropped three match points before holding his nerve on the fourth to win it 10-8.
