Cho Yoon-Jeun "I like Grass at Wimbledon"

Cho Yoon-Jeun(Samsung Securities), a tough lady on court, qualified for the second round of the Wimbledon Championship, the so called an arena of dream.

Cho Yoon-Jeun, who is ranked as no. 46 in the world, defeated Cristina Torrens Valerom, the world ranking no. 117 of Spain at the first round of the ladies` singles after a tough full set match by the set score of 2-1(7-5,1-6,9-7).

It is her first time at Wimbledon although she were qualified to the second round in the U.S. Open and Australian Open last year. Wimbledon, first started as a amateur tennis competition in 1877, is a competition which has a long history of sticking to white uniforms and emphasis of manners,

She used to dream of joining Wimbledon which is played on grass courts. She is the second female Korean to ever play at the second round of Wimbledon after Park Sung-Hee who was qualified in both 1995 and 1996. So she is expected to be ranked in the first half of world top 40.

Cho Yoon-Jeun will meet world ranking no. 34 Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, who is also well known as Multina Navratilova(U.S.)`s partner for doubles. She is hoping to revenge her last year defeat at the first round of Australian Open by Kuznetsova; She was defeated by Kuznetsova by 1-2(3-6,6-2,4-6). Kuznetsova, who was once the world no.1 junior player, is strong at ground strokes but does not have such experience on grass courts, so she is expected not to be too difficult to win.

If Cho Yoon-Jeun has a high rate of succeeding first serves, and concentrate on offense, there is a good chance that she will beat her, said Kim Il soon of the Samsung Securities.

At the first round, Cho Yoon-Jeun, who had been pointed out to not enough stamina at the end of games, showed high spirit for the victory at the day and it led her to the second round. She was losing at first set by 4-5 but won the next 3 games consecutively. She, however, lost the second set so hopelessly by 1-6, making the game even. In normal circumstances, she would have lost the 3rd set, but she showed a high concentration on the 3rd game even when she was at the match point losing by 5-6 and finally won at the 16th game.

At the men`s singles Andre Agassi (33), the oldest player in the world, joined the second round.

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com