Wednesday August 22, 2012 - Tsung-Hua Yang of Tapiei (above) made a big impression on me at the 2011 US Open qualifying tournament and I was glad to have the opportunity to see him play again today. He faced Antonio Veic of Croatia in the very first match of the day.
Yang's playing is impressive for steadiness and technical sureness. His opponent was fiery and theatrical, with a couple of major outbursts of temper when he got what he thought was a bad call. Yang simply maintained his composure and moved unperturbed thru the match; he seemed destined to win from the start. Two rain delays - one of about 15 minutes and a second lasting only a couple of minutes - interrupted play. And as Yang was serving for the match, it started raining harder. He was able to secure the win just before all tournament play was suspended for about 45 minutes.
Antonio Veic did display a sense of humour amidst his theatrics: when called for a foot fault, he asked the lineswoman "Which foot?"
Once the rains stopped and things got dried out, I stayed at the same court to watch China's Yi-Fan Xu, a petite player who managed to thwart the tall British woman Naomi Broady. With a mixture of moon-balls and craftiness, Xu seemed to prevent Broady from making any headway.
After Xu's win, I moved from court to court: no match really captured my attention although I was curious to see the 'new' Chinese male player Ze Zhang in action. He has a lot of talent, and he's quite tall but his opponent - the second-seeded Slovenian Aljaz Bedene - showed that experience counts for a lot in these situations. The Frenchman Josselin Ouanna similarly kept Taipei's Ti Chen from building any momentum, despite some impressive shots.
We'll see how my favorites fare on Thursday and that will determine whether I need to go again on Friday.