FIRST ASIAN TO REACH GRAND SLAM QUARTER FINAL IN WIMBLEDON SINCE ‘95 – II
Kyaemon
Roddick Is Upset by 82nd-Ranked Lu of Taiwan – NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/sports/29roddick.html
WIMBLEDON, England — After the final ball bounced past him, Andy Roddick showed a facial expression somewhere between dumbfounded and perplexed. Defeat had sneaked up behind him, suddenly and dramatically.
The man who ended Roddick’s Wimbledon sprinted toward the grandstand and unleashed a frantic fist pump. His name was Yen-Hsun Lu. His seismic upset, 4-6, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 9-7 was in the record books.
Lu, who is from Taiwan, became the first Asian man to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal since 1995. Roddick scolded reporters and stomped off, the final American remaining in men’s singles headed home.
“I don’t think stunned is the right word,” he said. “I don’t view what happened today as an impossibility.”
Even if it seemed that way, if only because at this tournament 12 months ago, Roddick fought into the final and dueled Roger Federer for five thrilling sets. Ever since then, that match, that moment, had defined Roddick. People approached him in coffee shops, at restaurants. They told him where they watched that final and what it meant to them.
Tennis fans here love their underdogs, and in Roddick, they found another Goran Ivanisevic, also a three-time runner-up at Wimbledon. All tournament, but especially on Monday, the fans embraced Roddick, implored him, shouted his name between each point in the fifth set.
This match took place on Court 2, on the opposite side of the All England Club from the site of last year’s final, Centre Court. As it ended, shadows crept across the far edge, a symbolic closing of the curtain on the Americans in men’s singles here.
Yen-Hsun who? Lu stuns Roddick :: The Courier News :: Local Sports
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/couriernews/sports/2443986,CST-SPT-wim29.article
….Lu said he didn’t think he could win but told himself to keep fighting.
”I just told myself, ‘If I can stay longer, longer, longer, then probably something happens,”’ said Lu, who became the first Asian man to reach the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam tournament since Shuzo Matsuoka of Japan did it at Wimbledon in 1995. ”And then I waited for the last chance to close the match.”