Yecong He, who is No. 813 in the ATP Rankings, has not spent a lot of time at ATP World Tour events in his career. He has never qualified for the main draw of a tour-level tournament. But after advancing to the second round of qualifying at the Shenzhen Open, he certainly made the most of his time on the stage.
In fact, you can argue the home favourite earned perhaps the biggest victory of his life, going down to one knee while still on the court and popping the question to his now-fiancée, who was in the stands.
“I prepared this proposal before this trip,” the 24-year-old said. “But I didn’t tell many people about that because I didn’t want to put pressure to myself. I figured if I couldn’t get a win today , I could always wait till next time.
“I am really grateful that she has my back and supports me unconditionally. She already retired and is a swimming coach now, so she can’t always travel with me. It’s lucky that this weekend, she got days off because of the mid-autumn festival. Everything was so perfect for this proposal.”
He’s compatriots, Di Wu and Zhizhen Zhang were on hand for the special moment.
“Congratulations to my bro, He,” Wu said. “Not only did he win his first ATP [World Tour qualifying] match today, he also won over a lovely wife. Not so many people can do that. We are all so envious.”
He will have to refocus on Sunday, as he faces Dell Technologies Hall of Fame Open finalist Ramkumar Ramanathan with a spot in his first tour-level main draw on the linereadfullarticle
