Taiwan's top tennis player hits career high in rankings

Lu moved up six places to be ranked 55th in the world in the most recent rankings released by the ATP Tour, two places higher than his previous high of 57 attained in mid-February.

He remained the top-ranked Asian player ahead of Australia's Lleyton Hewitt (88), Japan's Kei Nishikori (93), Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin (99), Kazakhstan's Russian transplant Andrey Golubev (104), Japan's Go Soeda (116), and South Korea's Lee Hyung-Taik (128).

Lu's ranking could fall in the next two months, however, especially if he plays top ATP clay court events leading up to the French Open, which begins May 25.

The 25-year-old, who has never been an accomplished clay court player, has to defend 368 of his 1,166 ranking points by May 25, points that he won mostly in lower tier Challenger Tour events last year.

Those points will be lost if he does not earn a similar number of points in upcoming tournaments, an unlikely scenario on clay.

After taking a break, Lu will participate in the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters if he gets a direct entry into the main draw and then will play in the Barcelona Open, which starts April 20. Both are clay court events.

Taiwan's hard-serving Yi Chu-huan, who has been saddled with injuries over the past two years and focused mostly on doubles, also made a big move in the rankings this week, climbing to 584th in the world from his previous ranking of 690 after reaching the finals of a Futures event in Japan at the end of March.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

PrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email