Hyeon Chung should be pretty proud of himself. Even with his 7-5, 6-1 loss to Roger Federer, he's going to reach a special milestone come Monday.

Thanks to his quarterfinal run in Indian Wells, Chung will rise to a career-high of No. 23 and become the No. 1 ranked Asia. He's surpassing Kei Nishikori, who's ranking is dropping from No. 25 to No. 33 after he pulled out of the BNP Paribas Open with an illness.

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"I'm really honored to be [the] No. 1 Asian," Chung said. "And Kei is playing really good and great player in the world, and I hope he playing good this year. I'm just happy."

Chung scored wins over the likes of Pablo Cuevas and Tomas Berdych last week. Though Chung was dismissed by Federer on Thursday night, he was still happy (especially given he had to retire from their semifinal meeting at the Australian Open).

"I was down one break, and I'm just trying to stay, like, calm and I'm just trying to learn from Roger. And I come back, like, 5-all, and he played good," Chung said. "I'm really happy to play against Roger."

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