Roger Federer is figuring out how he will play South Korean unknown quantity Hyeon Chung ahead of Friday\u2019s semi-final in one of the Australian Open\u2019s most intriguing match-ups in years.<\/p>\n
On paper it looks hugely one-sided. Federer, a 19-time Grand Slam champion and veteran of 382 Slam showdowns over 20 years, up against an unseeded 21-year-old lining up for just his 17th match at a major.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a breakthrough tournament for Chung, whose 58th ranking is expected to tumble after toppling six-time champion Novak Djokovic and world No.4 Alexander Zverev on the way to becoming the first South Korean to reach the last four at a Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
The Swiss defending champion is a master at working out his opponents and coming up with solutions. Chung will be no different.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hardly know Chung. I\u2019ve hardly spoken to him,\u201d Federer said after Czech-mating Tomas Berdych in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now I couldn\u2019t tell you how I need to play him. One thing I know is I\u2019m going to be playing aggressive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know exactly how he returns and how he serves exactly. Those are two major aspects to the game. I have to figure that part out a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Federer and his brains trust will comb through Chung\u2019s matches in Melbourne, but the five-time Australian Open champion has been impressed with the bespectacled Korean\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited to play Chung. I thought he played an incredible match against Novak Djokovic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, to beat him here is one of the tough things to do in our sport. To close it out, that was mighty impressive.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo bounce back from a Novak match and just somehow get it done in the quarters, that\u2019s tough. That shows that he\u2019s had good composure, a great mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s an interesting match for me,\u201d added Federer, lining up for a record 14th Australian Open semi-final.<\/p>\n
Chung has made history by becoming the first South Korean to reach a Grand Slam semi-final and is also the lowest-ranked player in 14 years to get to the last four in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
He has limited English but the Australian crowds have taken to him during his candid on-court interviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really surprised because I really don\u2019t know. I make semis, I beat like Sascha (Zverev), Novak, the other good players. I never playing in second week in Grand Slam, so I\u2019m really surprised,\u201d Chung said.<\/p>\n
He won the 2015 ATP Most Improved Player award and signalled his coming of age with his big breakthrough at the \u2018NextGen\u2019 ATP finals in Milan where he beat Russia\u2019s Andrey Rublev in November.<\/p>\n
Chung will become the highest-ranked South Korean player in history after the Australian Open when he will break into the top 30 and could zoom as high as No.10, if he wins the tournament.<\/p>\n
The Korean, who has modelled his game on childhood idol Djokovic with his elastic sliding ability of using the hard court as a clay court, has been dubbed \u201cThe Professor\u201d due to his trademark thick white-rimmed glasses after being diagnosed with weak eyesight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Roger Federer is figuring out how he will play South Korean unknown quantity Hyeon Chung ahead of Friday\u2019s semi-final in one of the Australian Open\u2019s most intriguing match-ups in years. On paper it looks hugely one-sided. Federer, a 19-time Grand Slam champion and veteran of 382 Slam showdowns over 20 years, up against an unseeded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19820,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19818\/revisions\/19820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}