Meet Chung Hyeon, A Korean Tennis Player Who's The Hottest Thing On The Internet Now

Chung Hyeon is currently the pride and joy of South Korea as he makes history by being the first Korean tennis player ever to reach the semi-finals of a Grand Slam Tournament.

At 21 years old, he’s also the youngest man to do so in the past 8 years and is currently making headlines as he takes on some of the world’s biggest players, in the Australian Open.

Coming into the tournament ranked at No. 58 in the world, his ranking is sure to rise following the Australian Open. He can rise up as high as No. 10 if he wins the whole tournament but is guaranteed to surpass South Korea’s current highest ranked player, Hyung-Taik Lee, who peaked at No. 36.

On his journey to the semi-finals, he has already taken on and beaten the world’s No. 4 and No. 14, Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic respectively.

He fought a grueling 5 set match against Zverev before beating Djokovic in straight sets (3-0).

Chung Hyeon was not favored to win against US player Tennys Sandgren in the quarterfinals but proved everyone wrong and won in straight sets once again.

He plays 36-year-old Roger Federer, who stands at No. 2, on January 26. Federer says he’s very excited to play him.

“Look, I’m very excited to play Chung, I thought he played an incredible match against Novak. To beat him here is one of the tough things to do in our sport, I believe. I know that Novak maybe wasn’t at 110 percent, but he was all right. He was giving it a fight till the very end. To close it out, that was mighty impressive.”

—Roger Federer [Via The New York Times]

Whether he wins over Roger Federer or not, Chung Hyeon is on his way to Tennis greatness.