Young gun Han was triumphant

Continuous run by local qualifier Kim So-Jung ended in semi-finals as she bowed out easily to lefty eighth seed Han Xinyun from China 1-6, 2-6 at “Incheon Women’s Challenger Tennis” in Incheon, South Korea on Saturday (May 23, 2009). Nevertheless, a credit should be given to resurgent Kim for such performance in her quest to climb back to her decent world rank. Chinese players really showed their power here in this 25K tourney as Liang Chen secured all Chinese finals after she cruised past “special exempt” Elena Chalova of Russia with comfortable 6-1, 6-3 victory. In the finals, 18 years old Han (rank per May 18, 2009 at WTA 291; her best at WTA 254 in July 2008) eventually won her maiden title quite easily over Liang 6-2, 6-2 and now she leads 2-0 in her head to head with Liang. Han first meeting was at Chengdu 25K when she had to work hard to defeat Liang 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the second round back in May 2007. As reminder, Han had beaten Indonesia’s numero uno Sandy Gumulya 6-2, 6-3 in the first round of Toyota 75K, Japan last November.

In doubles’ final, also all Chinese battle which then completed clean sweep by the Chinese entourage, top seed pair Lu Jing-Jing/Sun Sheng-Nan edged past second seed duo Han Xinyun/Ji Chun-Mei 6-3, 6-3.