THE sun’s gentle morning rays were poking between the suffocating high-rise buildings that devour every empty corner of Shanghai. The Masters Cup was yesterday’s glory, its success a testament to China’s ability to put on a brilliant show when it knows the world is watching every move.
Lleyton Hewitt was heading home to Australia, richer in bank balance and credibility, Juan Carlos Ferrero was just ahead of me in the queue for the long journey back to Europe, barely able to raise a smile, knowing how close he had come to victory. One wondered when either of them would next give a second thought to the nation they were leaving behind, and the prospect of China turning out a player as brilliant as they.
That morning, off a nondescript road in a nondescript suburb, some of the citizens of Shanghai had gone through their dawn routines. Incredibly nimble 80-year-olds dangled from what looked like garroting wire and lifted their bodies in graceful movements from the ground; a couple of women in stockinged feet walked across a path of jagged stones, clapping their hands as they went. Just to touch the stones with your hand gave some idea of the pain that had to be endured by scraping the balls of the feet across them. Mind over matter.
Tennis was being played elsewhere in this concrete park. There was much grunting effort from several groups of older men and in a distant corner were four tiny girls in pullovers and tracksuit bottoms, three of them dressed identically. You began to imagine the impact if the Wang triplets from Shanghai took over from the Williams sisters of Compton, California. The fourth girl was slightly taller and struck the ball with supreme assurance and joy, possessing a double-fisted backhand of classic splendour.
Was this a first indication of the long great march of Chinese tennis? The sport was first played in the middle of the 19th century, when ports opened to the West and Shanghai was flooded by merchants, priests and troops. In the tumultuous decades that followed, as China mixed evolution and revolution in a manner that we can barely comprehend, tennis was first ridiculed but is now the favoured sport of several members of the inner chamber of the Central Committee. Which could be enormously providential.
The grandson of Jiang Zemin, the former president, attends the same school as the four girls. What an incalculable boost it would be for the sport should little Jiang go on to approve of it as much as his grandfather. His form will be closely monitored by Yao Zuhao, a retired PE teacher who takes a passionate interest in the sporting development of the pupils at his old school, and Lisa Tang, who is coaching the four girls on this wonderful morning and has an overwhelming desire to see a Chinese tennis champion.
In 1990, Tang toured Europe with the likes of Leander Paes, of India, as a member of an eight-player Asian team that was dipping its toe in the big time. She reached the second round of junior Wimbledon, but did not have what it took to plough the professional’s furrow. Instead, she decided to coach, answering the call to teach the locals and children of Western families who had settled in the city. She is not part of the Chinese system, but a freelance, well-known and much-loved in her home city, who gives private tuition — sometimes paid, more often not — while trying to spot and nurture as much talent as she can. She passes any information she gathers on to the authorities in the hope that they have the expertise not to waste it. The needs are manifold. The International Tennis Federation began its China Project four years ago, focusing on coach education, junior development and mini tennis.
The project introduced a coaching certification programme, holding Level I and II courses to train the coaches and holding courses for tutors so that the Chinese, ultimately, could administer the courses themselves.
In 1999, the first ITF Chinese Under-14 Championships were held, with the best players selected for a touring team to play in a number of leading European junior events. The signs are immensely encouraging. The two best juniors are girls, Peng Shuai and Dui Rui, the latter having won the La Baule championship in France last year. Lacoste, the French clothing company, has signed a six-figure deal with the Chinese Tennis Federation to assist in the development of the country’s leading teenage talent.
How much of that will find its way down to nine-year-old Min Xuanyuan and seven-year-olds Ai Ning, Be Yi and Chu Ningwang remains to be seen. But the French are committed to helping Chinese tennis to develop. What a pity the Lawn Tennis Association did not see an opportunity and leap at it, but then it has enough trouble getting British kids to take up the sport.
In Britain, it appears difficult to identify a talented youngster from a population of 57 million — how about from 1.3 billion? Legend has it that there are committed tennis lovers far out in the Chinese countryside, who do not have a yuan to rub together and yet spread the tennis gospel with a zealot’s fervour. But will the poor children into whose hands these tutors thrust bent and threadbare old rackets ever have a chance to succeed? Lisa Tang hopes so. “We have very good players but they need support,” the 28-year-old, who set up a mini-tennis exhibition in a local Carrefour store, attracted six sponsors and spent hours trying to spot anyone with a shred of talent, says.
“All the kids got 15 minutes with soft balls, they played for free and they all got a hat at the end,” she said. “If I saw anyone I thought had a chance, I went to their local schools to tell them. It is frustrating that we do not have enough tournaments at the junior level. And when the kids play in them they try too hard, because they know how important it is to do well. In Europe, you can lose this week and there is always next week. It is not the same here.”
Seeing kids running around tennis courts with baseball caps on back to front or, in the case of the Wang triplets, in smart pigtails, made you wonder what might happen if a Chinese player came of age. When a TV audience greater than the entire population of the United States can tune in to watch a Chinese basketball player performing in the NBA, what might happen to Wimbledon’s viewing figures if China found a tennis player who could win on grass?
