Ly Hoang Nam wins historic victory at Australian Open junior tournament

Winning 7-6 (7-4), 7-5 against the highly rated opponent Corentin Moutet (France), Vietnam's number one tennis player passed the first round at the prestigious junior Grand Slam tournament today, January 25.

The match takes place at 10:30 (Hanoi time), on field number 15.

In the first set, Hoang Nam did not start well, letting his opponent lead 3-0 then 4-1. However, after getting used to the rhythm and finding a way to counter the powerful playing style of the French U16 champion, the Vietnamese player won four consecutive games to take the lead 5-4. After a tense tug-of-war, the two took each other to the tie-break. There, after the score was equalized at 3-3, Hoang Nam continuously scored three points to gain a big advantage. Moutet shortened the gap to 4-6, but Hoang Nam took advantage of the serve to win the match 7-4.

Hoang Nam has a diverse and versatile playing style to defeat Corentin Moutet in the first round of the 2015 Australian Open junior tournament. Screenshot.

The weather at Melbourne Park Sports Complex (Australia) today was quite hot, raising concerns about Hoang Nam's physical decline. However, the 2013 Asian Youth Games champion showed composure in defense as well as in attack at the net. He often moved the ball to the two corners of the court to wear down Moutet's strength and then unexpectedly made some tricky cross-court loops in the second set.

On the other side of the net, after losing the first set, Moutet appeared impatient. As a result, the Vietnamese representative broke consecutively in the second and fourth games, taking a 5-2 lead.

At this point, Moutet showed his ability as a player ranked 1,250th in the ATP. With tricky power shots and high accuracy in both corners of the court, the 1999-born player won three games in a row and tied the score at 5-5. In the 10th game, Hoang Nam served but missed several opportunities and let his opponent win 50-30.

However, he did not let the mistake happen again. In the 11th game, Hoang Nam continuously made strong serves that Moutet could not defend against, and quickly won 50-15.

With the mental advantage high, Hoang Nam also changed his tactics with powerful shots to the back of the court instead of continuously moving the ball to the corner of the court like before. Moutet was somewhat psychologically affected in the serve game, so he continuously made mistakes or hit the net.

A beautiful net and smash put Hoang Nam ahead 40-15, almost ending Moutet's chance of a comeback. Although his French opponent later narrowed the gap to 30-40, Hoang Nam was still calm enough to finish the game to seal a 50-30 victory in the 12th game. This is the first time in history that a young Vietnamese player has made it to the second round of a junior Grand Slam tournament.

Hoang Nam's next opponent is Akira Santillan (Australia). The 16th seed of the tournament had an easy 6-4, 6-2 victory over Boris Pokotilov (Russia) on court 13.

According to VnExpress