The future is a fragile thing. January 2018. Hyeon Chung, 21, achieves the first major result of his young career by reaching the semi-finals of the Australian Open. Two months earlier, he had won the very first edition of the NextGen Masters, in Milan, where we also found three promising players from Russia, Karen Khachanov, Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev and Denis Shapovalov. For the South Korean, the future looks bright.
In Melbourne, it was especially his victory (7-6, 7-5, 7-6) in the round of 16 against his idol and model, Novak Djokovic, which struck people's minds. A Djoko certainly at the bottom of the wave, in full resurgence of the Federer-Nadal duo, who once again wins everything. It is during this “Australian” 2018 that the Swiss will win his 20th Grand Slam title. Who can then imagine that he will stop there but above all that Djokovic will glean 12 more, as many as since the start of his career? However, he has already passed the thirty-year mark.
Equally improbable is the future trajectory of Hyeon Chung. The tennis resemblance with Djokovic is also something obvious. “You know we have very similar gamesalso notes 'Nole' just after his defeat. I respect him a lot because he works hard, he has become very strong physically and you can see that he cares about his career, that he takes things very seriously. He's a good guy, who doesn't make unnecessary noise. So I am sure that he will obtain other very good results very quickly..”
The Top 20 then hell
A good player and full of praise, the Serbian adds: “The rest depends on him“. A way of reminding us that a coup is a promise, not a guarantee. In which Djokovic will be right. But he is wrong on one point: everything did not depend only on Hyeon Chung. It was not that a question of work, of ambition, of desire The tragedy of the Korean is that his body will not follow him. He will even give up very quickly and never leave him alone.
From 2018, the first alerts. The leg. His season on land is ruined, the one on grass is the same. In particular, he must draw a line under Roland-Garros and Wimbledon. Year in and year out, he plays until the fall and at the end of this season, he is 25th in the world, after a brief foray into the Top 20 (19th) in the spring. But the nightmare is about to begin.
In 2019, he was absent for five months due to a back injury and played barely fifteen matches throughout the year. However, it is an understatement to say that the worst is yet to come. As incredible as it may seem, when he lost in October 2019 in Vienna against Andrey Rublev in the round of 16, Hyeon Chung had simply played his last match in a big draw on the main circuit. That was more than five years ago and, since then, he has only played challengers, Futures or the qualifiers for Roland-Garros (in 2020) and Wimbledon (in 2023).
Between the Covid-19 pandemic and a host of injuries, including further back surgeries and tendinitis in his hand, no one heard from him for almost three years, until an attempt at a singles comeback in 2023 on the secondary circuit. He still wanted to believe it. “I plan to use my protected ranking to play in as many ATP tournaments as possible. I'm going to play in Asia first but then I plan to travel to play everywhere“, he said while explaining that he had changed his way of serving, in order to put less strain on his back.
A glimmer of hope, finally
The road is long. In total, over the last five seasons, Hyeon Chung will have played a total of 22 matches. For 17 defeats. Then last week, an improvement. During the M25 in Bali, a Futures where he had requested a wild card, the former semi-finalist from Melbourne played five matches. Better still, he won them all to win the title. Along the way, he beat Frenchman Antoine Escoffier, 207th in the world. By far his most significant victory in recent years.
This may not seem like much to you, and compared to the excitement of the start of the season in the Antipodes, it may indeed appear very anecdotal. But not for him. We saw him again mobile and galloping in defense, with a hint of solidity found in the exchange. He who had disappeared from the ATP rankings for months re-entered the Top… 1000 on Monday thanks to this “coronation”. A first since the summer of 2022. Here he is 725th, a jump of 382 places at once.
For now, he doesn't care about the rankings. At almost 29 years old, Hyeon Chung just aspires to be able to truly become a tennis player again, capable of going through tournaments, of seeing beyond the next point, the next training session, the next injury. He would like time and a horizon.
The rest does not depend so much on him as on what his body is willing to endure and the latitude he is willing to give it. So far, in 2025, so good. One day, perhaps, he will return to Melbourne, following in the footsteps of his first and only stroke of brilliance, before the desert. He just wants to get out. But the future is a fragile thing.
Hyeon Chung
Credit: Getty Images
