BreakPoint
Bionic Poster
I just watched the Chinese wildcard Gong play Safin in the 1st round of the Shanghai Masters and he was quite impressive for a guy that's ranked #541 and has only played futures events before (almost all in China). This was his first ever ATP tour match and he gave Safin a run for his money. He pretty much went toe-to-toe with Safin throughout the match and Safin only won with one break in each set. Before the match, I thought Safin (a former #1, two-time Grand Slam champion, and full of natural talent) would steamroll over this poor guy that nobody's ever heard of (kind of like what Cilic did to Nadal a few days ago ;-) ), but surprisingly he was very competitive with Safin and could have won this match if he didn't hit so many double-faults on break points.
For a small guy, he has good pace on his serve, hits a pretty big forehand, and has a very good one-handed backhand. He was keeping up with Safin on groundstroke rallies despite Safin's firepower off the ground. I think if this guy can put it all together and develop his game a bit more, we could see him playing in the main draw of Slams one day. (BTW, another Chinese wildcard, Shao-Xuan Zeng, won his 1st round match over Dudi Sela and they said he's the first Chinese man to ever win an ATP tour match in history. :shock: I know I've never seen a Chinese guy play in an ATP tour event before, only in the futures.)
For a small guy, he has good pace on his serve, hits a pretty big forehand, and has a very good one-handed backhand. He was keeping up with Safin on groundstroke rallies despite Safin's firepower off the ground. I think if this guy can put it all together and develop his game a bit more, we could see him playing in the main draw of Slams one day. (BTW, another Chinese wildcard, Shao-Xuan Zeng, won his 1st round match over Dudi Sela and they said he's the first Chinese man to ever win an ATP tour match in history. :shock: I know I've never seen a Chinese guy play in an ATP tour event before, only in the futures.)