Lee Deok-hee (Sejong City Hall, ranked 625th in the world) advanced to the finals through the preliminary round of the Gwangju Open Challenger.
Lee Deok-hee, who received a wild card for the preliminary round, won 6-7 (6) 7-6 (3) 6-4 against Blake Ellis (394th in the world) after a close game of 2 hours and 53 minutes at the ATP Gwangju Open Challenger (CH75) qualifying final held at Jinwol International Tennis Court in Gwangju on the 15th.
Lee Deog-hee was the only Korean player to reach the preliminary final and advance to the finals among the five Korean players who competed in the preliminary round.
Lee Deok-hee played at the Gwangju Open Challenger for the first time in 2016, and has advanced to the quarterfinals for the third consecutive year. However, her performance was sluggish as she was eliminated in the first round in both 2019 and 2022.
Starting with the ITF competition held in Thailand in February this year, Lee has played four international competitions, and unfortunately finished runner-up at the ITF NishikTokyo competition (M15) held in Japan in March. This is the first Challenger Tour event since the Busan Open Challenger last year.
Lee struggled, allowing ELRIS 16 serve aces. On the other hand, he had only one serve aces and made seven double faults to solve the difficult game.
The two players exchanged one break in both the first and second sets, and balanced the set score 1-1. With the tight flow leading up to the game score of 4-4 in the third set, Lee Deok-hee succeeded in breaking Ellis’ service game, taking the opportunity to set a serving forward.
Ellis struggled by erasing five match points, but Lee Deok-hee did not allow the reversal. Lee Deok-hee’s opponent for the first round of the finals has yet to be decided.
As Lee Deok-hee advanced to the finals, a total of five domestic players will play from the 16th, including three players who received wild cards for the finals, Jeong Yoon-sung (Ansung City Hall, 383rd in the world), Nam Ji-sung (Sejong City Hall, 708th in the world), Lee Jae-moon (KDB Development Bank, 564th in the world), and Hong Seong-chan (Sejong City Hall, 172nd in the world), who won the runner-up prize at the Busan Open Challenger last week. 먹튀검증