Seongchan Hong

Hong Seong-chan (227th place, Sejong City Hall) advanced to the singles finals of the Men’s Professional Tennis (ATP) Tour BNP Paribas Open (total prize money of $9,495,555).

Seongchan Hong defeated Sumit Naggar (101st place, India) 2-1 (2-6 6-2 7-6<7-4>) in the second round of the singles preliminary round on the second day of the tournament held in Indian Wells, California, USA on the 6th (Korean time). ) was defeated.

With this, Hong Seong-chan entered the singles finals of a Masters-level tournament for the first time in his life.The opponent for the first round of the finals will be decided later.

The BNP Paribas Open is an ATP 1000 series tournament and is a ‘big event’ that ranks right after the four major majors.

Nine ATP 1000 series tournaments are held a year, of which the BNP Paribas Open is the first ATP 1000 series tournament of the season.

Most top-ranked players, including Novak Djokovic (1st place, Serbia), Carlos Alcaraz (2nd place, Spain), and Jannik Sinner (3rd place, Italy), will participate in the finals of this year’s tournament, and Rafael Nadal (652nd place, Spain) ) will also participate and face Milos Raonic (224th, Canada) in the first round.

Hong Seong-chan, who is currently the highest ranked Korean player in the world, led the third set game score 5-3 and allowed a tie-break, but took three points in a row in the tie-break 4-4, ending the close match for 2 hours and 22 minutes with a win.

Hong Seong-chan, the 2015 Australian Open junior singles runner-up, is currently playing mainly in the Challenger, a level below the Tour.

He won the Challenger once in 2022, and is on the rise recently, finishing second twice in the Thailand and India Challenger competitions this year.

He, whose personal highest ranking was 184th in May last year, is expected to rise to around 205th in the world rankings by advancing to the finals of this tournament, and also secured $30,050 (about 40 million won) in prize money for the first round of the finals. 스포츠토토맨