The southpaw traveled to Canada to manage the young Asian promise, who beat a local player in straight sets in a match that was interrupted by a long rain.
After his resounding Lexington Challenger title, Juncheng Shang (246th) returned to action at Challenger 80 in Granby, Canada. And he didn’t do it alone, since as he was able to confirm Jock came back with Marcelo Ríos, who travels for the first time to accompany his student during an entire tournament a decision which is part of the trial period imposed by the former world number one to determine if he definitively imposes himself at the controls of the promising Chinese tennis player.
The draw was quite accessible for the Asian, while he paired him on his debut with Canadian joker Marko Stakusic (1,251st) , a 19-year-old player, but without a long career on the circuit. The duel was scheduled for 10:00 p.m. (Chile), but ended at 2:30 p.m., due to the rain that fell. In fact, the duel was interrupted twice in the second set for the same reason. After that, Shang won 6-4, 6-4.
The match starts rather favorably for Jerry, as he is nicknamed in the United States. A break in the first game (the only one in the end), allowed him to lead the match favorably. Coming from the baseline and driving with both his forehand and backhand, the Beijing native controlled the action.
In the second set, the match was 1-1, while the rains were present. The meeting was suspended for 15 minutes. On the return, Shang broke and confirmed it by winning his serve. With the score 3-1, another downpour came. This time the intensity was greater, so the wait lasted almost three hours.
On the return, the left-hander was a little complicated, but not enough to lose the advantage, and he closed the victory with category to settle in the second round and extend his unbeaten run to six wins since joining Ríos’ wing.
For the passage to the quarter-finals, Shang will face the winner of the match between the Americans Colin Markes (798th) and Ezekiel Clark (476th).
key weeks
After the conquest of the Lexington Challenger, Don Ríos kept his promise to accompany Shang in the semi-finals and in the final, the Chilean southpaw dedicated moving words to his student in one of his two Instagram accounts.
“Are you talking about the experience of this weekend. It vibrated with tennis again, but more than tennis itself, it was being with the Chinese and seeing him play at an impressive level. “, he acknowledged, adding later: “For those who don’t know, I only managed to be with him for 6 days training and helping him with some things, what’s interesting about my new role is that at his age , he still has a lot to learn and that motivates Me, a lot ”.
Earlier, in a chat with El Deportivo, Ríos detailed the development of the relationship: “We started on Friday 22 (July), we had six days to train. It was more like a test to decide if we were going to continue or not. They offered me a financial settlement and Jeff (Schwartz), my agent, is negotiating with them. But it occurred to me that since he was going to play five challengers, I told him to play four and rest after the first two; then we trained for a week and I accompanied him to the others for free and he only paid me for the tickets”.
Follow in sports
Source: Latercera
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
