By Scoop Malinowski
The Chinese junior Yibing Wu won the US Open junior boys title last week and then flew to China to play as a wildcard in the main draw of the Shanghai Challenger.
Guess what? Wu has won three rounds, taking out the second seed Peter Polansky of Canada in the first round 63 76. Polansky has played in three Challenger finals this year.
Then Wu won against Shuichi Sekiguchi by retirement 5-0 and 5 seed Hiroki Moriya 76 64. Moriya is 2015 in the world, Polansky is 128.
Which means Wu is playing top hundred calibre tennis right now at 17.
I remember chatting with former Aussie great Peter McNamara at the US open two years ago about Chinese tennis. McNamara has been coaching Chinese juniors in China for several years and he told me that in about five years Chinese tennis players could begin to invade the elite levels of the ATP and WTA. He said there were tremendous numbers of talented teenaged Chinese players coming up the ranks and now with this emergence of Wu winning the US Open junior title and reaching the semis of an ATP Challenger (he will meet German Mattias Bachinger today) it could be first sign that a balance of power shift is about to occur in pro tennis.
Wu is currently ranked 496 in the ATP. He reached the semis of a Challenger last month in Chengdu, China losing to Yen-Hsun Lu 6-4 in the third set. In March he lost in the first round of Miami Open qualies to Jared Donaldson 62 62. In February he played Davis Cup for China against Chinese Taipei, beating recent Challenger winner Jason Jung 61 46 57 76 (9) 4-1.
Wu has most likely earned a wildcard into Shanghai Masters 1000 with his recent run of excellent results. It may not be long before Wu, the current ITF no. 1 junior who turns 18 in October, is added to the #NEXTGEN conversations.
Scoop Malinowski · September 18, 2017 at 7:50 am
Scoop Malinowski writes:
Wu won the Shanghai Challenger final 76 ret. over Lu who is 63 in the world right now. What a month it has been for Wu. At 17 he is beating top 65 in the world players.