South Korea's Duckhee Lee made history on Monday at the Winston-Salem tournament in the United States, where he became the first deaf tennis player to win a game in the final draw of an ATP tournament. The 21-year-old tennis player came out victorious in his first round, not without having to handle a five-hour break because of a storm, against Switzerland's Henri Laaksonen, 120th at ATP (7-6 [4 ], 6-1). It was his first encounter on the main circuit.
" My message to the hard of hearing is not to get discouraged ""People were making fun of me for my disability, they were telling me that I should not be playing, it was really hard, but my friends and family helped me move forward, I wanted to show everyone that I could to do it ", was moved after his historic victory Lee, ranked at the 212th place in the world, so far long confined to the Challenger circuit. "My message to the hard of hearing is not to get discouraged, if you give yourself the means, you can do it all."
Her disability makes her life hard, on and off the courts
Her disability makes her life hard. Duckhee Lee can not hear line judges or chair referee score announcements: he must rely on gestures to avoid confusion. And do not perceive the sound of bullets.
Apart from the courts, it also requires him to be assisted to understand including media issues. He does not know sign language because he learned to read Korean on the lips when he was a child, and his way of expressing himself is not necessarily easy to understand, even for a South Korean. On Monday, his fiancée had to help a South Korean translator so that the player's impressions could be shared with the press. "I thought I was going to do my best and try to stay focused, but I came out with the win," he said. For his second round, against the Polish Hubert Hurkacz (40th world), Lee wants to have "the same attitude": "do my best and see what happens."