South Korea Leads India 2-0 in the Davis Cup, and Chung Hyeon’s Comeback Put It There

For most of the past few years the tennis world has had to work to remember that Chung Hyeon was still playing at all. The man who once beat Novak Djokovic on the sport’s biggest stage had become a ranking deep in the wilderness, a career quietly swallowed by his own body. In front of a home crowd that never stopped believing, he made forgetting impossible again.

South Korea now stands closer than it has ever been to the elite closing stage of the Davis Cup, a level the country has never reached under the tournament’s current format. It leads its qualifying tie against India, and it got there behind the least likely name on its roster.

Chung, ranked outside the top 500, drew the tougher assignment: Sumit Nagal, India’s No. 1 and some 300 places above him in the world order. For a set it looked like the mismatch the rankings promised. Nagal took the opener 6-2, breaking early and playing with the ease of a man who expected to win, and Chung dropped his first two service games to trail 0-4 before he had properly found the court.

Recommended ReadingNovak Djokovic Was Winning at the US Open Until His Body Quit

What happened next is the reason he is still in this sport. Over three hours and six minutes he clawed the match back one exchange at a time, taking the second set 6-4 and then a decider that held on serve until it didn’t, breaking late to close it out 7-5. The Seoul crowd, per South Korean outlet Star News, roared him through a comeback his ranking said he had no business completing.

That ranking is the wound. In 2018 Chung was twenty-one and, for two weeks in Melbourne, untouchable: he outlasted Alexander Zverev, dismantled Djokovic in straight sets, and reached the semifinals before the blisters on his feet forced him to stop against Roger Federer. He climbed to No. 19 in the world, having already won the inaugural Next Gen ATP Finals. Then his body began its long argument with his ambition — an abdominal injury, then a back that would not hold — and the prodigy became a rehab project, and then an afterthought.

He was not the only Korean to refuse the script. Kwon Soon-woo, the more dependable of the home singles players, dropped the opening set to Dhakshineswar Suresh before righting himself to win 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Two Korean players trailed; two Korean players declined to lose. That, more than any scoreline, was the day.

The wire version reduces it to Korea 2, India 0, and a note that the Indians — three-time finalists in a bygone era, never past the Final 8 in the modern one — must now sweep Saturday’s doubles and both reverse singles to survive. All true, and all thin. The better story is that Korea’s push toward Bologna is being carried by a thirty-year-old the sport had quietly written off, and who has spent years insisting the obituary was premature.

If Korea closes it out, the man who could be asked to serve for the country’s first Final 8 place is the one ranked 549th in the world — the same one who, a lifetime ago in tennis years, made Djokovic look ordinary. The body has taken a great deal from Chung Hyeon. It has not yet taken the part that decides matches.

Tags: South Korea, India, tennis, Chung Hyeon, Davis Cup, Sumit Nagal

More Like This

Novak Djokovic, out in the US Open first round: “Vomiting, throwing up, a serious issue there”

South Korea – Czechia: the night Korea learned to win without Son Heung-min

Nick Kyrgios Failed a Cocaine Test — and the Rulebook He Mocked Might Be What Saves Him

Sabalenka and Djokovic Top the US Open Mixed Doubles — and the World No. 1 Wanted It That Way

DC Open Final Suspended by Rain: Jessica Pegula Leads Alex Eala but Has to Win It Twice

Harrison and Skupski Win the US Open: Eight Surgeries Later, a Second Grand Slam at Home