Ranked 395 in the world, Brydan Klein was the last man to make the draw of the Chennai Open Challenger tennis tournament.
Brydan Klein
Chennai:
The 29-year-old had only a little more than 24 hours to recover ahead of his opener, but he didn’t stutter in his first two matches, winning both in straight sets. The trend looked like continuing in his pre-quarterfinal clash against Kwon Soon-woo as well. He wrapped up the opening set 6-4 and was one set away from sealing a last eight berth.
At 4-5 down in the second set, Brydan suddenly spewed on court and appeared to be in a great level of discomfort. After receiving treatment for about 10 minutes, he was back to battle it out against Kwon, who was serving for the set. The Brit looked jaded after the restart and gave a couple of freebies away to lose it 4-6. “I had a headache and everything was dizzy. I started to feel my lunch and after that, I threw up. Following the timeout, I felt better,” he told DT Next.
Just when the sparse crowd thought the Korean would have a walk in the park, Brydan threw up a major surprise. In the decider, it was as if he was truly his old self. He dished out a number of booming serves and made light work of his opponent. The Australian-born British international, who bagged the final set 6-3, broke Kwon once and held his serve throughout to come out deserving victor.
“My movement wasn’t great as you know. If he played it to the corner, I just left it to save some energy. I wanted to serve big, so that I need not run much. I was not feeling good, but luckily got the break,” he said, when asked how he pulled it off despite his illness. “I am happy, but I couldn’t celebrate it. He is a good opponent, I had to win the match and he didn’t give much away. Heat, jet lag and a few other things made it difficult today (Thursday),” added Brydan.
He himself wasn’t sure of getting this far in the tournament. The 2007 Australian Open junior champion had initially booked his return ticket to down under for Friday, the day on which he will now meet local lad Sasi Kumar Mukund in the quarter-finals. In fact, he spoke to us only after pushing his journey to a later date.
“To take the flight from Australia to here, I had to show the authorities my return (ticket) as well. Only then I was allowed to travel. They didn’t want me to live here for 10 years (laughs). So, I had done it for Friday. If I am winning, I thought I will just cancel it.”
The event organisers had intimated it to him only a couple of days before the curtain raiser. Brydan flew all the way from Australia for about 20 hours and set foot in Chennai only on Monday morning.
The 29-year-old had only a little more than 24 hours to recover ahead of his opener, but he didn’t stutter in his first two matches, winning both in straight sets. The trend looked like continuing in his pre-quarterfinal clash against Kwon Soon-woo as well. He wrapped up the opening set 6-4 and was one set away from sealing a last eight berth.
At 4-5 down in the second set, Brydan suddenly spewed on court and appeared to be in a great level of discomfort. After receiving treatment for about 10 minutes, he was back to battle it out against Kwon, who was serving for the set. The Brit looked jaded after the restart and gave a couple of freebies away to lose it 4-6. “I had a headache and everything was dizzy. I started to feel my lunch and after that, I threw up. Following the timeout, I felt better,” he told DT Next.
Just when the sparse crowd thought the Korean would have a walk in the park, Brydan threw up a major surprise. In the decider, it was as if he was truly his old self. He dished out a number of booming serves and made light work of his opponent. The Australian-born British international, who bagged the final set 6-3, broke Kwon once and held his serve throughout to come out deserving victor.
“My movement wasn’t great as you know. If he played it to the corner, I just left it to save some energy. I wanted to serve big, so that I need not run much. I was not feeling good, but luckily got the break,” he said, when asked how he pulled it off despite his illness. “I am happy, but I couldn’t celebrate it. He is a good opponent, I had to win the match and he didn’t give much away. Heat, jet lag and a few other things made it difficult today (Thursday),” added Brydan.
He himself wasn’t sure of getting this far in the tournament. The 2007 Australian Open junior champion had initially booked his return ticket to down under for Friday, the day on which he will now meet local lad Sasi Kumar Mukund in the quarter-finals. In fact, he spoke to us only after pushing his journey to a later date.
“To take the flight from Australia to here, I had to show the authorities my return (ticket) as well. Only then I was allowed to travel. They didn’t want me to live here for 10 years (laughs). So, I had done it for Friday. If I am winning, I thought I will just cancel it.”