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on the outer wall of hubei shiyan sports center hangs a huge poster of zheng qinwen, which has faded a little. after winning the women's singles tennis championship at the paris olympics this year, this talented girl who once demonstrated how to hit the ball to local young tennis players in her hometown of shiyan has become a new idol.

"just like zheng qinwen's generation of tennis players grew up watching li na, zheng qinwen has now become a role model for the younger generation of players," zheng qinwen's first coach and former coach of shiyan amateur sports school chen hongming told china newsweek.

even after retiring for many years, there are still parents who come to ask chen hongming to see if their children are good candidates for playing tennis.

from discovering her daughter zheng qinwen's athletic talent to finding a coach based on li na's training path and doing her best to support her daughter, zheng jianping has also been questioned: in a highly professional and commercial sport like tennis, how can one train a child to become a world-class athlete?

regarding the hot topic of "her family spent 20 million to train her", zheng qinwen recently responded publicly at a press conference before the us open: "i don't know if it's true or not. if our family is really that rich, i wouldn't have to be so stressed at the time."

"professional tennis is a high-investment, high-return, high-risk sport. to become a professional player, high cost investment is the most basic. whether one can transform into a good professional player, of course, there are many other factors. now the age at which professional players achieve good results is later than before, which means that more investment may be needed continuously." wang jihong of galaxy bay professional tennis club, a well-known professional tennis training institution in the asia-pacific region, admitted, "not all families can bear such pressure."

on august 3, in shiyan city, hubei province, people watched zheng qinwen's competition at the olympic sports center. photo/visual china

a more connected generation

zheng qinwen didn't like riding in a car since she was young. she would always walk and jump, no matter how far she went, she would never feel tired. zheng jianping, who was a track and field athlete, once thought that his daughter was good at running and even let her practice table tennis. it was not until he took her to watch a tennis match at the beijing olympics in 2008 that zheng qinwen showed extraordinary concentration. after returning to shiyan, she began to participate in tennis training under zheng jianping's arrangement.

another major event happened in chinese tennis that year: the long-debated reform of professional tennis finally came to fruition. this means that domestic athletes will have the hope of getting more rewards in this highly professional and international sport, not only throughout their careers, but also off the court and even in the planning for the next 20 to 30 years.

the family gamble started by zheng jianping had a good start. the 6-year-old zheng qinwen was "very interested" in tennis. chen hongming recalled that zheng qinwen was very naughty when he was young, "but he never slacked off during training. he ran to the court as soon as school was over every afternoon. he was always the first to arrive and the last to leave."

"the enlightenment stage is mainly to cultivate children's interests, mainly through play." chen hongming said that after less than a year of training, zheng jianping decided to take his daughter to wuhan to become a teacher. he first asked someone to find li na's first coach xia xiyao, and soon after, she transferred to another coach sun yanyan.

zheng qinwen's performance undoubtedly encouraged her father to increase his confidence in training her. sun yanyan once recalled to the media that zheng qinwen "made a lot of mistakes during training, but she was very active in chasing and saving the balls that were not played well." this attitude of "fighting for every ball" is exactly why she took a fancy to zheng qinwen.

in the summer of 2011, li na, who was far away in france, won the championship after winning the finals, becoming the first asian player to win the grand slam women's singles championship. a wave of tennis fever swept across china, but the domestic tennis training market was just starting at that time, and the market-oriented professional training path was not yet mature. if you want to become a top tennis player, the most direct way is to copy li na's homework. not long after training with sun yanyan, zheng jianping took zheng qinwen to find yu liqiao, li na's coach when she was in the provincial team.

according to yu liqiao's recollection, she did not intend to accept this "short, fat little girl" at first, but zheng jianping was very persistent and she eventually accepted zheng qinwen, who was much younger than her peers. yu liqiao previously admitted in an interview with china newsweek that unlike the "all-inclusive training and life" approach when training li na, the environment in which zheng qinwen grew up had changed. yu liqiao was only responsible for training and did not have to manage the players' lives.

going around to learn from masters meant that zheng qinwen had to change schools constantly. at first, it was her grandmother who accompanied and took care of her, and later her mother resigned and accompanied her everywhere for a long time. xie chun, yu liqiao's assistant coach at the time, once recalled to the media that before leaving, zheng jianping asked him if it was possible to form a coaching team specifically for zheng qinwen. the answer was of course no, but the fact that "dad zheng" had such an idea was enough to show how high his expectations were for his daughter.

after training with yu liqiao for more than two years, zheng jianping took zheng qinwen to beijing jingxinzhilun tennis academy to learn from carlos rodriguez, the coach who previously guided li na to win the australian open women's singles championship. it is reported that during the years in beijing, the coaching team held weekly meetings around zheng qinwen's training progress and made targeted plans. at the age of 16, she participated in the french open, wimbledon, and us open junior competitions, and reached the top 16 in all of them. as zheng qinwen gradually entered the world arena, zheng jianping contacted spanish coach pere riba.

in the process of zheng qinwen becoming a professional player, family is undoubtedly the main driving force. as early as when zheng qinwen was less than 12 years old, she had already become the champion of the same age group in china. at that time, zheng jianping strongly advocated that her daughter "go to the united states to play games" to see how zheng qinwen positioned herself in the same age group in the world. it was because of her outstanding performance in a global junior tennis player open held by img, the world's largest sports entertainment marketing management company, that zheng qinwen won the favor of img and signed a contract, thus embarking on the road of professionalism.

"the professionalization process of this generation of tennis players born around 2000, represented by zheng qinwen, is more in line with the international professional tennis training model." guo jingtao, former deputy director of the children's tennis development alliance of the chinese tennis association and founder of chaoda tennis club, told china newsweek that in the early days, the family was the main focus, combined with club training, and they got higher-level training through competitions. they entered international competitions at a very young age and were noticed and signed by internationally renowned agencies, which not only reduced the burden on the family, but also increased personal commercial value.

no upper limit on investment

in the eyes of chinese families, zheng qinwen's training model is more replicable than li na's.

every time when she accompanied her child to practice, you zhi complained in her heart that it was "too expensive", but when she thought about how her daughter had gone from being tired of training to actively playing for more than half a year, she felt that it was "worth it". her daughter is 5 years old and has been practicing for almost a year. she is still in the enlightenment stage. she has changed six or seven institutions before she found a satisfactory coach.

the foreign teacher who loves tennis that she finally found charges 1,000 yuan per hour, and parents have to pay an additional 200 to 300 yuan per hour for the venue fee for each class. "it's not just about cultivating skills, but more importantly, it's about the impact on character." you zhi gave an example, such as the concept of winning and losing. during training, the coach would encourage the child to "never say i can't do it", but would also tell her that "a win or loss doesn't mean anything."

you zhi is not the most expensive parent. another young player trained by this coach, who is also in the enlightenment stage, has already increased his training to five times a week. the training expenses alone are five times what you zhi paid. in first-tier cities such as beijing and shanghai, such charging standards can only be considered medium.

"from the perspective of the entire youth tennis training cycle, the investment in the introductory stage is the least." chen hongming said that the training expenses at this stage are mainly coaching fees and venue fees. the fees vary greatly in different cities. some families invest 20,000 to 30,000 yuan each year, while others invest 40,000 to 50,000 yuan. there is no unified standard. the consensus in the industry is that the introductory stage training market is the most mature from various perspectives such as coaching level and price selection.

chen hongming said that because parents attach great importance to sports, children are generally exposed to tennis at a younger age, and some start playing at the age of four or five. if they persist until the age of eight or nine, they usually enter the next stage of training, gradually increasing the time and difficulty of tennis training, formalizing the training, and thus transforming interest into sports skills. at this time, the family investment will also double, and if a higher-level coach is replaced, the cost will naturally rise.

"the provincial team usually selects young players in the 12-14 age group. if you continue to play tennis, you will basically have to enter a higher stage of professional training." chen hongming said that at present, the country, provinces, cities or social clubs have tennis competitions of different levels for young people, forming a national youth tennis ranking series. generally, the youngest age to register is 8 years old, and you can play until 18 years old. there is an age group every two years, and you can "beat the big with the small", but not "beat the small with the big". players accumulate experience and improve their ball iq and ball skills through competitions to test whether they have the ability to continue on the path of professional sports.

the reason for selecting players around 12 years old is that the body of teenagers is basically fully developed at this time, "which is the turning point of the physical condition in adulthood". chen hongming said that whether a child can go on the professional sports path is usually affected by "family", such as parents' height, family sports history, whether there are family genetic diseases and other factors. "professional players basically travel around the world all year round, and tennis is extremely physically demanding."

"chinese children generally do face the hurdle of 'retirement' at the age of 12." when you zhi was making sports plans for her daughter, she learned that when 12-year-old children enter junior high school, the academic pressure increases. in addition, due to various reasons such as their own poor performance in competitions and the family's inability to support the economy, many young players will choose to give up training at this time.

guo jingtao took out a set of data from the tennis match score recording software "tennis record". as of august 2024, the total number of male and female participants throughout the year was 22,957 in the under-12 group (u12), but there was a cliff-like drop in the under-16 group (u16), with only 1,690 people.

"93% of children no longer play tennis. the reason is that their previous training mode, coaching level, and physical ability development can no longer keep up with the intensity of the competition. it takes at least two years of intensive professional training to participate in top-level competitions." guo jingtao estimates that if they still stay in the professional arena at the age of 16, they must have achieved results around the age of 12, so they must decide whether to take the professional path at the age of eight or nine at the latest. "competitive sports are so harsh."

wang jihong said that for families who continue to firmly pursue professional game training, "assuming they play about 20 weeks of games a year, the travel, food and accommodation expenses alone will be 200,000 to 300,000 yuan. if the training fees are added, the number will only be higher."

a senior practitioner who has been working in the field of youth sports training for more than 30 years told china newsweek that after reaching a certain level in domestic competitions, one should find a way to send children to european and american tennis schools for training and to participate in international youth tennis competitions. if men get into the top 3 and women get into the top 6, they can basically be considered to have embarked on the professional path. otherwise, it will take more time and money to trial and error.

when tennis players embark on the journey of international competitions, the financial investment is bound to increase exponentially. according to the official website of img academy, depending on the registration age and course, the annual tennis tuition fees for 2024-2025 range from us$69,400 to us$93,900, equivalent to about rmb 490,000 to rmb 670,000.

"adding the expenses for competitions, food and lodging, equipment, stringing, treatment, and private training, the actual annual expenditure easily exceeds one million rmb." wang jihong reminded that a large part of the expenditure is used for "private training". after regular training, it is usually necessary to hire a one-on-one private trainer.

wu fang, the mother of the famous men's singles player wu yibing, once admitted that wu yibing's learning to play tennis was very expensive when he was young. the cost before he was 15 was more than 1 million yuan, and the training and competition costs in the following years added up to more than 10 million yuan. zhang zhizhen, the male tennis player who just won the silver medal in the mixed doubles tennis at the paris olympics, also mentioned in an interview with the media that it takes about 20 million yuan to train a tennis player to enter the top 100 in the world.

training a professional tennis player is not something that an average family can afford easily. zhang ruien, the 15-year-old tennis player who won the gold medal in the women's singles at the first national student (youth) games last year, told china news weekly that his daughter started playing tennis at the age of 3 and a half, and by the age of 12, she had spent enough money to buy a house in the center of shenzhen.

betting on a future

after the paris olympics, as chinese players broke the two records of women's singles champion and mixed doubles runner-up, "mass tennis has seen a blowout." zhong yi, who runs a club in wuhan, told china news weekly that the number of people who have come to consult about learning tennis has more than doubled recently.

born into a sports family, zhong yi started to practice tennis at the age of 7. at the age of 22, she represented the chinese tennis team in the incheon asian games and won a bronze medal. the following year, due to wrist cartilage damage, she returned to the provincial team as a coach. at a young age, she was called "zhong ma" by students. now the club she founded has survived the most difficult three years and is still working hard. zhong yi "hopes to discover and train outstanding athletes", but the reality is that she has not yet met any students who are determined to take the professional path.

"there are not many children who are suitable for and able to pursue a professional career, and whose families are willing to support their children in becoming professional athletes." zhong yi said that most of the families who come for consultation cultivate tennis as a hobby, but mass tennis is only the initial foundation. after training to a certain level, fun tennis and competitive tennis cannot coexist.

zhong yi herself is the best example. she was selected for the hubei provincial team right after graduating from elementary school. she was taught by yu liqiao and is zheng qinwen's senior. like other students of "coach yu", they train "from difficult, strict, practical, and in large quantities". the results of competitive sports are achieved through hard work and one must be able to endure hardships.

guo jingtao, who has been in the industry for 26 years, feels the same way. "there are many parents who want to copy zheng qinwen's success, but few are really determined to pursue a professional career." guo jingtao explained that professional tennis training means that children may have to give up regular academic studies, give up the constant company of their family, face arduous training alone, and spend almost all their family wealth on a gamble for their future.

compared with the career path, more students and parents choose "professional tennis", that is, applying for first-class universities at home and abroad through relatively excellent tennis performance. guo jingtao took the student composition of chaoda tennis club as an example. over the past 20 years, it has trained thousands of students, more than 900 of whom chose to "apply for school", while less than 5% of them are ranked in the international tennis federation (itf), the association of tennis professionals (atp) and the women's tennis association (wta).

"as the main body of tennis player training, the club is responsible for discovering, training and delivering professional players." guo jingtao introduced that the club can be roughly divided into three types: interest training, youth professional tennis training and adult professional player training. as far as youth professional tennis training is concerned, excellent players will leave the club later, which means that the training fee can only remain at a relatively fixed level, and the players trained are also mostly at a relatively fixed level.

if a club wants to survive in the market competition, coaches are one of the most core assets. guo jingtao said that clients value coaches rather than the name of the club, and excellent coaches are scarce and highly mobile, so it is difficult for clubs to fix their advantageous assets, coupled with high venue investment and personnel management costs. "domestic clubs generally face profitability difficulties, which is not conducive to long-term and stable professional training." guo jingtao said.

a professional coach from the united states professional tennis association (uspta) who has been in the industry for more than ten years told china newsweek that the profit model of internationally renowned tennis schools is "to use part of the tuition fees of 95% of the students to support 5% of the talented players, and this no more than 5% of the talented players become the school's signature."

talented players and top coaches attract each other. in comparison, the popularization of tennis in china started late, and the number of coaches with international experience is far from enough.

according to the 2021 global tennis report released on the official website of the international tennis federation, the number of chinese tennis players has reached 19.92 million, but there are only 100 chinese players with professional rankings, accounting for nearly one in 200,000. "tennis is actually a bloodless grid-based competition that requires the talent, hard work and luck of meeting a good coach, and finally financial support," said zhang yilei.

only the top 100 people in the world can support themselves

even zheng qinwen had to face a double dilemma - on the one hand, he had to hire a higher-level coach and support team to comprehensively improve his competitive level, and on the other hand, he had to face huge economic pressure. it is reported that zheng qinwen's team consists of five people, including a coach, a physical trainer, a rehabilitation therapist, an agent, and a part-time nutritionist from real madrid club.

in 2022, zheng qinwen won the wta best newcomer award and her world ranking rose from over 500 to 25th at the end of the year. she was called the "rocket girl" by the outside world. in july of the same year, zheng jianping signed a contract with the wuhan table tennis and badminton sports management center on behalf of her daughter. the content is: in the next four years, the wuhan sports bureau will subsidize zheng qinwen's expenses in hiring coaches, rehabilitation, etc. to ensure the normal operation of the latter's team.

compared with other ball games, tennis is not widely used in china due to venue restrictions and difficulty in getting started. there are only a handful of coaches with experience in international competitions. most of these coaches only coach domestic students and lack experience in guiding international players and top-level competitions. the aforementioned youth sports training worker who has been in the industry for more than 30 years said: "to compete with european and american players in professional competitions, going abroad for training and competition in advance is a must, and the sooner the better."

wang jihong further introduced that the help provided by international coaches is not limited to improving skills, but can also help players match training and competition resources. for example, they can find out where there are good clubs in the competition area, quickly connect with physiotherapists and rehabilitation therapists, help athletes find suitable competition partners, and even get wild cards for top competitions.

"professional teams have the ability to help athletes make more scientific and reasonable competition and training plans." wang jihong said that how to make reasonable arrangements in a complex competition system so that players can improve their abilities and successfully obtain competition points and bonuses does require a team with many years of professional experience to deal with it, so that players can focus on training and competition.

the entire team is supported by the players playing games. for example, swiatek, the first polish tennis player to top the wta world rankings, has been traveling around the world with not only coaches and fitness trainers, but also physiotherapists and psychological consultants. the more team members there are, the greater the players' expenses.

"if we lower the threshold to support ourselves with prize money, we can at least be in the top 100 in the world rankings." wang jihong said that the top 100 and outside the top 100 are two different worlds. the former can enter the main competition without playing in the qualifiers, with high points and high prize money, while the latter must start from the qualifiers to enter the main competition, and the investment in competition and training needs to be carefully calculated, and even the income is not enough to cover the expenses. many european and american players have no official support and are responsible for their own profits and losses. losing a game means no income, and subsequent transportation, food and accommodation may be affected.

taking the u.s. open as an example, in 2023, zheng qinwen reached the quarterfinals. even though he did not win the trophy, he still won 430 points and a prize of us$455,000, which is approximately rmb 3.3 million.

however, the reality is cruel for most professional athletes. according to the 2021 global tennis report, there are currently 3,619 professional players ranked in the professional tennis federation and the women's tennis association from 113 countries. among them, 273 athletes have been ranked in the top 100 in the world, including 137 male professional players and 136 female professional players, accounting for 6.41% and 9.18% of the ranked male and female professional players respectively. in other words, in the professional arena, athletes have to be in the top 10% to get enough income to cover the cost of competition and training.

"professional sports are also like thousands of troops crossing a single-plank bridge." wang jihong said frankly. at a time when tennis is more popular in china than ever before, parents and children need to make rational judgments on whether to firmly choose the path of professional tennis.

(at the request of the interviewee, you zhi is a pseudonym in this article)

published in the 1154th issue of china newsweek magazine on september 2, 2024

magazine title: how chinese families can replicate the “next zheng qinwen”

author: li mingzi

editor: min jie