Coleman Wong Chak-lam has been told he will have to “sweat blood” to beat in-form Sun Fajing on Saturday and reach the sixth Challenger Tour final of his career.
Coming off a 1½-month spell in which Wong’s coach James Allemby put down his player as “very result-oriented”, the Hongkonger continued his work in Jiujiang on Friday, beating home favorite Bu Yunchaokete 7-6, 7-6 in a tight quarter-final.
“Coleman would have very likely lost the match a couple of weeks ago, but the goal was for him to deal with every obstacle in the best possible way in terms of attitude and body language, and not get caught up in the results,” Allemby said.
“The real result was that he was able to say, ‘We left the day better than we found it’.”
After a first set that the team dominated, Wong, world number 122, won five straight points from 1-1 in the return match before closing it 7-2.
World No. 157 Bu served his first break point of the match in the eighth game of the second set, for Wong, 21, to respond immediately. From 5-5 in the tiebreak, Wong dropped three match points before holding on for the fourth to win 10-8.
