Masters Cup Aroses Tennis Fever in China

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 18, 2002

Masters Cup Aroses Tennis Fever in China

Shanghai Masters Cup turned the port city into a tennis-enthusiastic place overnight and stirred a new tennis-crazy wave over the country.

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"I love tennis! I want to become a big star like Hewitt someday!" shouted Xia Liangliang, a 10-year-old Chinese boy who flop into the Shanghai International Exhibition Center and witnessed the exciting Tennis Masters Cup final with his mother Sunday night.

Though the kid had never touched a tennis racquet before, it did not stop him from falling love with the increasingly popular sport in China.

"It's a nice thing that my son starts to love tennis. Because it is a good sport and getting more popular in China," said Mrs. Xia, one of several thousand Chinese tennis fans coming to watch the showdown between world number one Lleyton Hewitt and Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Liangliang is just one of numerous young kids falling love with the sport since the Masters Cup opened here. The sport has been picked up as leisure recreation by more and more Chinese families in recent years. During the tournament, you could easily spot fans about Liangliang's age or even younger among the 10,000 packed crowd.

Deng Haiqi, another boy at nine, had been practicing tennis for three years. He and his father, Deng Xiaoli, flew from the southern city of Guiyang over 2,000 kilometers away to watch the high-standard tournament. In all, the trip costs them 20,000 RMB (about 2,200 US dollars), more than the average annual income per capita in this country.

"I want him to keep fit through regular exercise and I hope he can become a tennis star in the future," said Haiqi's father.

Shanghai Masters Cup turned the port city into a tennis-enthusiastic place overnight and stirred a new tennis-crazy wave over the country since tennis made its debut in the midst of 19th century.

Tennis was introduced into China about 140 years ago, but since then it has always been a highbrowed sport enjoyed only by rich people in luxurious hotels.

Things started to change in the early 1990s when national tournaments were introduced and efforts were made in 1993 to make it professional when Beijing hosted China's first ever ATP tournament Salem Open.

Though the event was drawn to a reluctant close due to sponsorship problem three years later, it has been enough for professional tennis to settle in the most populous country in the world.

Taking the baton from the capital city, Shanghai started to host the Heineken Open four years ago, accumulating experiences for staging any world level tournament, the 2002 Masters Cup, for one.

Now, playing tennis has become one of the fashions among young people in big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu. White collar group and university students account for most of the percentage.

"I play tennis every weekend with my friends," said Li Hong, a college student from Beijing. "We have four courts on campus and it costs us 30 yuan (less than 4 US dollars) per hour."

In Shanghai alone, the number of tennis courts has grown from less than a hundred to over 800 in five years, and the number is still rocketing up.

It is a big progress, but compared to the huge population of 16million in Shanghai, the number is tiny, which make tennis still not as accessible as table tennis, badminton or basketball.

"We'd like our kid to play tennis despite the high cost," said Xia. "But the courts are few and the nearest one is still too far away from our family. He will have to travel over two hours to reach it."

As a young tennis country, China only has tennis population well under one million, while the United States, which boast world class players like Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, has over 10 million with their total population one sixth of that of China's 1.3 billion.

Not until 1998 the first professional tennis club was founded and the number has been increased to 15 teams now. And there were about 2,000 professional players registered.

A comparatively small base of tennis population as well as various reasons leaves China lagging behind the world level with the highest ranked Chinese players struggling behind 200.

"Infrastructure and good teachers are important for Chinese tennis development," suggested US Open chairman Mervin Heller.

Tim Phillips, chairing the All-England Club, agreed. "You need more courts and coaches."

Francesco Ricci Bitti, president of the ITF who is here to inspect the ongoing Masters Cup, also offered his advises, singling out coaching level, junior development and competitions as the crucial elements in promoting the sport.

"I guess there are three factors that we are usually consider important to improve and to grow our sport in a country," said the president. "The first one and most important one is the coaching education."

"The second one is the junior development in terms of competition and practicing, training access to the sport.

"The third one is to improve the number and the quality of the competition. You need more competition, inside and outside. The best players go outside to attend competitions for experience."

Zhang Xiaoning, secretary general of Chinese Tennis Association, said they would make more effort promoting the sport nationwide.

"We hope to bring the ATP tournament back to Beijing, which we are discussing with the ATP," said Zhang.

"We will pay more attention to juniors and plan to pair up the nine best young players with nine excellent coaches," added Zhang. "What's more, we also seek cooperation with tennis experts abroad as we sent seven players training in the United States and it is only a start."

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