A year ago this month, the 26-year-old Shanghai native Zhang Zhizhen, who hits a booming serve and plays with his long hair kept at bay beneath a headband, made history by becoming the first Chinese man to break into the top 100 of tennis’s world rankings. Four months later, he was joined by his compatriot Wu Yibing, who promptly went on to become the first Chinese man to win a title on the men’s tour – overcoming the American phenom Taylor Fritz in the process.
Welcome to the rise of Chinese tennis, in both player proficiency and infrastructure. If qualifying for grand slam main draws and climbing to double-figure rankings seem relatively modest achievements, it is proof of how historically underserved the sport has been in a country obsessed with basketball (and whose preference in racket sports has long been tennis of the table variety, as well as badminton).
