Hong Kit Wong, the 11 seed, beat Donald Young 12-10, 11-9 in the men's singles Round of 16 on Thursday, Nov 5, then reached the quarterfinals before Hunter Johnson ended the run on Friday. Young, the former tennis pro turned pickleball regular, went home early.
Days earlier, on his way to practice after the MLP Nations Cup, another car hit Wong's vehicle and flipped it. He crawled out with barely a scratch, slept badly, and played anyway. His team, Asia International, had gone winless in the Nations Cup. He told reporters he was lucky to be alive. The story is at pickleball.com, with the full run at Pickleball News Asia.
Wong had already shown his nerve in October, taking the first game off second seed Federico Staksrud at the Hong Kong Slam and leading 9-5 in the third before losing 8-11, 11-9, 12-10. The car crash could have ended his week before it started. Instead it became the week he will be remembered for.
Why it matters: Some weeks the sport hands you a story no preview could write. A flipped car, then a win over Donald Young, and a player who treated both like a normal week. That is grit the rec game recognizes instantly.