It’s pretty uncommon these days for the stars of tomorrow in the tennis world to be playing in Challengers week in and week out, but that is exactly what South Korean phenom, Hyeon Chung is doing. We all know the rising stars of the ATP start out playing in Futures and Challengers, but let’s be real, their mouths salivate at the opportunity to win tour-level matches and events. Once they get to that point, there is really no looking back barring injuries. Chung has proven you don’t need to necessarily be playing in tour-level events to rise up the rankings. Challengers are a fantastic way of getting match play and seeing how you compare to other players on the professional level, albeit you’re never going to get the test that Djokovic or Federer will give, but still, experience is experience.

ATP 250 events are the tournaments that most young players play in order to get experience on the tour. If they’re lucky, maybe they can even get the opportunity to play in an ATP 500 event. If they’re really lucky, they get granted wildcards into Masters 1000 events or Grand Slams. Personally, yours truly thinks that playing in all these tour-level events are what stagnates the process of these future stars. For example, we’ll go to American Donald Young. For the longest time, Young was touted as a the next great American tennis star. He has had his shining moments such as making it to the fourth round of the US Open in 2011, upsetting Stan Wawrinka in the process, but other than that, it’s been a roller coaster ride for the American. He’d continuously play 250 events or take wildcards into these grander events and would just keep on losing. At 21/22 years old, you want to be taking leaps forward, not backwards.

Okay so some have proven that you don’t need the Challengers circuit to succeed at all; the prime example is Nick Kyrgios. Kyrgios has succeeded in Challenger events, but has had his best successes in his career to this date in ATP events and Grand Slams. His 2014 run to the Wimbledon quarterfinals showed us how one can make the best use of a wildcard. With his quarterfinals appearance, he moved into the top 100 in the world. When you’re in the top 100, you can showcase your abilities in most ATP tournaments and that is exactly what Kyrgios has been doing up to this point now making the quarterfinals of his home slam, the Australian Open, and making his first career ATP World Tour final in Estoril at the Portugal Open.

Now back to Chung, he has won three Challenger events already on the season and has won back-to-back events in Savannah and Busan. Although he has recorded three tour level wins this year (one in Miami, two in Houston), he’s not relying on tour-level events to help him get by and move on up. It’s common in most countries, but when a young player or even any player plays in a home tournament or is from a tennis-rich country, they are granted wildcards to many events. South Korea is not a tennis-rich country by any means as they dominate Asian soccer and women’s golf and do not host a single ATP tournament so these allusive opportunities are not often available for him. Robert Frost once said, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Credit to you Chung for taking the Challenger route and now getting yourself into the top 70 of the world now, all by taking “the road less traveled”.