Taiwan's Chen Ti defeated Alex Kuznetsov but compatriot Jimmy Wang lost to Stefano Galvani in the first round of qualifying for the Wimbledon men's singles in Roehampton, London, on Monday.
Chen beat his American opponent 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 to set up a clash with No. 17 seed Jan Hernych. The Czech, ranked more than 150 places higher than the 25-year-old from Keelung, was a straight sets victor over Andrew Coelho of Australia.
Chen, who has yet to play at Wimbledon, needs to win two more matches before he earns a place in the draw for this year’s tournament.
Wang suffered a straight sets loss to his 204th-ranked Italian opponent, taking only one game in the first set and two in the second.
Wang, who has struggled with injury of late, has seen his ranking slip from 85 two years ago to 225.
More than 250 players are vying this week at Roehampton for 16 places in the men’s singles, 12 in the women’s singles’ and places for four pairs in the men’s and ladies’ doubles.
A number of famous names have gained entry into the Championships via the qualifiers over the years including John McEnroe in 1977, Boris Becker in 1984 and Goran Ivanisevic in 1988.
In 1999 Jelena Dokic reached the quarter-finals as a qualifier while Alexandra Stevenson went one better by reaching the semis.
Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun, whose ranking automatically qualifies him for a Wimbledon place, lost in straight sets to Dmitry Tursunov of Russia in the first round of the ATP tournament in Nottingham on Monday.
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