China’s rising stars serve notice on tennis world

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China’s Zhu Lin serves to Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu during their women’s singles tennis match at Wimbledon on 1 July (HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP)

Twenty years since its golden breakthrough at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, Chinese tennis has come a long way towards reaching the sport’s top echelons, with this year’s Wimbledon Championships bearing witness to the rapid progress.

Highlighted by its biggest representation at a Grand Slam and a young star making it into the second week, Chinese tennis is celebrating a remarkable campaign at this year’s Wimbledon, where the country’s next-gen talents served notice they are a rising force.

Li Ting and Sun Tiantian, now both retired, lit the spark by winning an unexpected gold in the women’s doubles at the Athens Olympics.

The nation’s most famous tennis player Li Na then ignited interest in the sport in China by winning Asia’s first individual Grand Slam title at the 2011 French Open, followed by another at the 2014 Australian Open.

Her heroics inspired a tennis boom that has grown exponentially over the past decade, with more players entering the sport’s elite ranks, more courts and facilities being built, and a larger number of international tournaments being played in China.

At this year’s Wimbledon, 11 Chinese players featured in the men’s and women’s main draws at the All-England Club — the most the country has had to compete at any of the four tennis majors.

Spearheaded by world No 7 Zheng Qinwen, China has six players ranked in the top 100 on the Women’s Tennis Association Tour. Their predecessors’ legacy has paid dividends for China’s current generation, who have benefited from early exposure to professional tennis and more access to international events.

“I think players now know better, and earlier, about what it is like to live, breathe and play as a pro than what we did in the beginning,” said retired star Zheng Jie, who won the 2006 Wimbledon women’s doubles with Yan Zi.

China’s world No 36 Wang Xinyu was one of the highlights of the women’s draw after she fought her way into the fourth round, her best performance at a major and the furthest an individual Chinese player advanced at this year’s Wimbledon.

The 22-year-old, a winner of the 2018 Wimbledon girls’ doubles, said her deep run in London was a great learning curve.

“My whole experience of fighting into the second week for the first time here was priceless,” Wang said after losing to Ukraine’s world No 21 Elina Svitolina 6-2, 6-1 in the round of 16 on 8 July.

“Although the result didn’t happen as expected today, I still finished this year’s tournament with a lot of positive takeaways, knowing better where I should push for further improvement.”

Modern talent development methods are also behind the success of China’s top woman Zheng Qinwen, a finalist at this year’s Australian Open, and winner of the WTA’s Most Improved Player of the Year award in 2023.

Encouraged by her parents, Zheng picked up a tennis racket for the first time at the age of 6 in her home province of Hubei, where Li Na also hails from.

She later moved to Beijing to develop her talent at an academy run by Argentine mentor Carlos Rodriguez, who coached Li to her second major victory in Melbourne in 2014.

Now based in Barcelona and training with Spanish coach Pere Riba, a former ATP world No 65, Zheng has set her sights on diversifying her arsenal beyond her blistering forehand and serve in order to mix it with the world’s best.

“Obviously, 15 years ago in China, tennis was just beginning,” she said. “So we didn’t have much opportunity to improve our system of coaching.

“Now after 15 years, we know more about the world, we know how everybody is playing, and we try a lot of different coaches to really improve our games. So all of us are starting to have more knowledge about tennis.”