A career in professional tennis does not always go as planned for many players.
Injuries, personal issues, among other setbacks can see a promising talent quickly turn into a ‘what if’, with fans wondering what the star could have achieved were it not for such hurdles.
Many will point to Nick Kyrgios as an example of this, as the Australian is often praised for his extraordinary talent but criticised for his poor work ethic, which, along with injuries, ultimately held him back.
Others will name Andy Murray, asking how much more he could have won in the sport had he not been in the same era as the three greatest players of all time.
However, former American player Sam Querrey said there is one player he thinks is the biggest ‘what if’ who ‘vanished off the face of the earth’.
Sam Querrey said Chung Hyeon is the biggest ‘what if’ in tennis
Speaking on the ‘Nothing Major‘ podcast, Querrey said: “I think Chung [Hyeon] is like the biggest one.
“Just because he made the semifinals of the Australian Open, got that crazy blister on his foot and then like vanished off the face of the earth, and he was like 22 years old.
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“I think everyone had him pencilled in as a guy who was gonna be like top 10 for a while and then, like, where is the dude? I don’t know what happened to him.”
Querrey’s co-host, Steve Johnson, then argued: “Agassi is kind of a what if, if he didn’t go for that mental break… maybe not a mental break, but it was for like four years.
“How many more majors could he have had, you know what I mean?”
Chung Hyeon’s career after reaching the Australian Open semifinals
Chung Hyeon burst onto the tennis scene when he won the Next Gen ATP Finals in 2018, defeating Andrey Rublev in the final.
The year after, he put together an extraordinary run at the Australian Open, defeating Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic en route to the semifinals.
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In the final four, Chung faced Roger Federer, but was forced to retire during the match due to blisters on his foot in the second set.
The Korean made his top-20 debut, reaching a career-high of 19, but his ranking soon plummeted outside the top 150 following an injury-ridden 2019 season.
After a two-year hiatus, Chung returned to tennis in 2022 to play doubles at the Korea Open and made his singles return at a Challenger event in Seoul, but lost his first match back.
Since then, Chung has played largely on the Challenger Tour and is now ranked 368th in the world.
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