{"id":732513,"date":"2026-06-29T08:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T08:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/732513\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T08:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T08:22:13","slug":"serving-in-the-south-korean-army-and-returning-to-wimbledon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/732513\/","title":{"rendered":"Serving (in the South Korean Army) and Returning (to Wimbledon)"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIMBLEDON, England \u2014 July 12th, 2026, would be an obvious red-letter date for many atop the ATP Tour who aim for the sport\u2019s biggest prize as the day of the Wimbledon men\u2019s singles final. <\/p>\n

But for one of the 128 men in the Wimbledon men\u2019s singles draw, the date has been circled for an entirely different reason. For Kwon Soon-woo, the 28-year-old South Korean who won two ATP titles and has been ranked as high as 52nd, that day is the finish line that marks his freedom from the 18 months of compulsory military service which has disrupted and distracted and derailed\u2014but not destroyed\u2014his career.<\/p>\n

Kwon\u2019s remarkable story led not only to a rewriting of the ATP Rulebook, but also led a South Korean general to change the policies of the military\u2019s \u201cAthlete Corps\u201d for the first time, allowing him to compete at Wimbledon this year.<\/p>\n

As Kwon and his coach Daniel Yoo made clear in interviews with Bounces this week, he\u2019s very, very happy to be nearly done. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Two thumbs up from Kwon Soon-woo. (Photo by Ben Rothenberg for Bounces)<\/p>\n

And Kwon\u2019s peers on the ATP Tour are happy to see him back, too, even if they know his speed is a weapon of its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat motherfucker is fast as shit.\u201d \u2014Frances Tiafoe on Kwon Soon-woo. <\/p>\n

To read the full story of Kwon\u2019s journey through the military and back to the tennis tour\u2014and read previews of the best matches to watch at Day 1 of Wimbledon, please subscribe to Bounces! -Ben<\/p>\n

Give a gift subscription<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WIMBLEDON, England \u2014 July 12th, 2026, would be an obvious red-letter date for many atop the ATP Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-732513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}