MELBOURNE: China’s 17-year-old Shang Juncheng (pix) on Monday made a stunning debut at the Australian Open, his first Gram Slam event, by powering into the second round with a 6-2, 6-4, 6-7(2), 7-5 victory over Germany’s Oscar Otte.
As the youngest man to join the tournament’s singles draw this year, Shang also etched his name in history for delivering the maiden win by a Chinese mainland men’s singles player at the Australian Open main draw in the Open Era (since 1968), reported Xinhua.
Though Otte fired 19 aces and attained a fastest serve speed of 209 km/h, Shang edged past his German opponent with his 52 winners and scored a nearly flawless 94 per cent of net points.
Facing off the 29-year-old veteran who currently holds the 74th on the ATP rankings, world No. 194 Shang broke for a 3-2 lead in the opening set and drew his first blood without dropping any of the remaining three games.
In the following set, two forehand unforced errors and a double fault from Otte handed Shang a second 3-2 advantage and the young gun later chalked up a 6-4 set win on his scoreboard.
The third set was dragged into a tie-breaker, where Otte prevailed 7-2 by shooting powerful winners and forcing Shang into multiple errors.
But Shang later came back in the decider for a 7-5 triumph, securing his third set win after labouring two hours and 57 minutes on Court 13 at Melbourne Park. -Bernama