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the 2024 china tennis open has begun. because of zheng qinwen's participation, the china open women's singles has once again become the focus of attention.

in the first women's singles qualifying round, 8 players are from china. although they missed the main draw, the young players' debut at the china open still attracted fans' attention. not long ago, 16-year-old zhang ruian unexpectedly advanced to the semi-finals at the 2024 guiyang w50 open. the little girl who was once hugged and photographed by li na has begun to make a name for herself in the professional game.

chinese tennis player zhang ruien. image taken by italian tennis photographer alessandra herr and provided by the interviewee

since he started participating in the adult competition in april last year, zhang ruien finally ushered in his first breakout in terms of points. with his outstanding performance in winning 5 consecutive games in guiyang, he scored 22 points at once, exceeding the total points in his previous career and ranking in the world. rising to no. 769 was an important step for her to get a wild card for the china open qualifying tournament.

zhang ruien comes from a typical "tennis family workshop". for zhang ruien, her father zhang yilei is also her coach, and her mother is her nutritionist and physical therapist. the "family workshops" that are abundant in the world's professional tennis world are not common in china. during the entire professional training process, zhang ruien's family from shenzhen took care of their own profits and losses, explored on their own, and became their own school. there are voices from the outside world that are encouraging, but there are also voices such as "ye luzi" that are pessimistic.

"professional tennis is an extremely personal sport, and everyone's development path is different." one month before the start of the china open, zhang yilei talked to "china news weekly" about the difficulty of "tennis family workshop". at a time when domestic families are paying more and more attention to their children's physical education, "family workshops" may eventually no longer be niche. the path they have taken or the challenges they are facing will also become a reference for those who come after them.

"sold a house in the center of shenzhen"

"china news weekly": why did you choose the "family workshop" model to train zhang ruien?

zhang yilei:during my daughter’s initial stage of tennis, i was still very confident. i graduated from beijing sport university majoring in exercise physiology. i love playing tennis and love tennis. she started playing with rackets when she was three and a half years old. i can clearly feel her love for tennis, and she asks to "go play" at the end of the day.

when she was six or seven years old and could receive professional training, i made two preparations. he took the professional coaching qualification and became ryan's tactical and physical coach. at the same time, he was constantly looking for other guidance for ryan. when she was 6 years old, i hired two european coaches to coach her, but ryan didn't adapt to their style of play.

at that time, ryan's playing video attracted attention online and he was invited to perform with halep at the wta shenzhen open. therefore, he attracted the attention of img asia tennis director nick, who recommended former national team coach and french coach guillaume peyre to coach. ryan. after seeing ryan's technical and tactical performance, peyre said to me, "you are the best coach for ryan, but you have to constantly learn and update yourself."

peyre used the example of players who have achieved good results in the family-run model of international tennis. he told me very bluntly that if ryan firmly pursues the path of professional tennis, at least one of my wife and i will have to sacrifice our career, regardless of whether we hire a coach again. , we must always accompany her and be prepared to devote ourselves to it for 10 or 20 years.

i originally planned to continue working to make money and ask someone else to teach ryan. after that conversation, i decisively quit my job in a foreign company with an annual salary of one million. her mother, who was the director of china's largest automated website at the time, also quit her job and did a lot of research on nutrition and growth and development, and became ryan's psychological coach, nutritionist and physical therapist.

the external factor is that due to various reasons, he did not join the local team or provincial team. in order to train ryan to become a professional tennis player, family workshops became almost the only option at that time.

our all-or-nothing approach was not even approved by our elders at first, and the outside world was even more skeptical. however, we did not take risks, but made a decision after comprehensively weighing our own abilities and economic conditions. of course, it turned out that the cost of training was much higher than expected, and we had to sell a house in the center of shenzhen in 2018.

"china news weekly": what are the advantages of the "family workshop" model?

zhang yilei:as ryan's father, i am definitely not the coach with the highest technical and tactical skills, but i should be the coach who knows ryan best and is the most suitable to lead her so far. after she started teaching at the age of 3 and a half, i gradually bid farewell to the work pattern of frequent business trips and began to concentrate on cultivating ryan. i constantly evaluated her and observed and recorded her physical fitness, reaction ability and growth changes.

as a coach, i only need to develop ryan as a player, and i don’t have to distract myself from coaching others. after being a coach for so many years, if young players trust me and ask for some technical advice or help, i will take it seriously, but if anyone asks to train with us, i will politely decline. tennis is essentially a fight across the net. one side must be defeated. there is no draw. i cannot teach all the technical secrets to others. naturally, i will not accept other students at this stage.

"china news weekly": after the professional reform of tennis, many athletes have retained a certain degree of independence and received support from the provincial team through a combination of family support and provincial team sponsorship. in comparison, can the "family tennis workshop" model be said to have a higher degree of freedom?

zhang yilei:to some extent you can say that. for example, after ryan won the u12 women's championship in the national finals of the china citic bank youth tennis tour in 2019, as one of the player representatives, he won the opportunity to go to the 2020 australian open and participate in tennis training camps, friendly matches, and on-site watch games and other international exchange activities. as a result, the next year, the other three player representatives received a short notice and went to fuzhou as required for the training camp. only ryan went to australia.

arranging competition training is also relatively more flexible. ryan returned to china in january 2020, when the epidemic just broke out. we were worried that her next competition in france would be affected, so we immediately applied for a visa, took off from hong kong the next day, and stayed in thailand for 14 days. we arrived in france just in time before the competition. . after the overseas competition, due to epidemic prevention needs, we stayed in thailand for more than half a year. we just happened to catch up with the local youth international competition. by the way, we signed up for ryan, used the competition as a substitute for training, and came back with a championship.

“there is no family that is not desperate”

"china news weekly": there are many doubts about "tennis family workshops" from the outside world. in your opinion, what are the challenges of this model?

zhang yilei:the pressure is always there, we can only rely on ourselves, there is no way out.

the first is economic pressure. over the years, our family workshop has invested at least several million yuan. it seems to be much less than the "20 million" mentioned online. this is because it does not include the investment and opportunity cost of our husband and wife coaching for 13 years. tennis is recognized as a high-involvement sport, and the training of professional athletes is even more so.

as far as i know, hiring an international coach for coaching costs at least 1,500 euros per week, and you also have to pay for the coach's round-trip air tickets, independent accommodation, and vacation funds. the coaching time is usually one year, and you will have to pay 3 months' salary if you terminate the contract early. if a player goes to compete overseas on his own, the cost of food, accommodation and training for a week will be at least over 10,000 yuan. if it were not a family workshop, the cost of cultivation would definitely be several times higher.

secondly, there is the pressure from the coaching profession. in order to provide more effective guidance to ryan, i must continue to learn and maintain communication with other coaches. i still spend several hours every day learning the latest training knowledge, including physical fitness, technology, tactics, psychology, etc.

by taking my daughter to compete domestically, go overseas for training, and use international social platforms, i constantly seek advice from all the well-known coaches and experts i can come into contact with. i sent them my daughter’s training videos and asked them for their valuable opinions to help ryan improve his techniques and tactics. i will take the initiative to pay the tuition and carefully prepare some small gifts to thank the other party for their kind help. after years of exchanges, many coaches have become our friends.

after all, family workshops are not authoritative institutions and are relatively lacking in resources. therefore, we will cherish the opportunities of competition and training more. ryan began competing overseas when he was 9 years old. in april 2018, ryan was invited by serena williams coach mouratoglou to participate in a training camp held at the mta in nice, france at the youngest age, and defeated two european u11 champions who were one year older, with 31 physical examination indicators. ranked first overall and included in mouratoglou's tracking list.

some organizations have proposed that they can sign contracts with young players and bear all their training expenses until the bonuses and commercial income from playing professional games can cover all expenses. but the corresponding price is that the player's entire career income must be returned to the organization at a very high proportion. we didn’t want to overdraw our child’s future and ultimately didn’t accept it. we believed we could train zhang ruien.

half a year later, ryan won the 10-year-old women's championship in the "zheng jie cup" youth tennis national finals. therefore, he was invited to participate in the "future professional top ten" world youth tour year-end stop held by nadal tennis school in spain. won the u10 clay court singles runner-up and u11 hard court singles runner-up.

during his stay in thailand in 2020, ryan signed with the british starwing sports management group, but we have not used a penny from the agency so far. for us, the greater value of a brokerage company lies in its integrated resources, which can provide abundant coaching guidance and more competition opportunities.

outside of tennis, there are always unexpected difficulties and twists and turns. these are the challenges that ryan must face as he grows up. in march last year, ryan competed in antalya, türkiye, and reached the quarterfinals, scoring 2 points for the first time in his career. but soon i received the bad news that "no high school is accepting students." the two high schools that originally recruited tennis students were rushing to enroll ryan, but due to various reasons, nothing happened. after all, ryan was only 15 years old. she didn't understand and felt aggrieved that she was suddenly unable to go to school.

at that time, there were invitations to ryan from overseas schools, but she had wanted to participate in international competitions as a chinese athlete since she was a child, so she did not accept them. we made every effort to retain our school status, and even prepared for the worst-case scenario of only graduating from junior high school for the time being. the child is under pressure, but daily training and competitions are never interrupted. ryan was lucky. after reaching the quarterfinals of the women's singles at the china open youth championship during the national day holiday last year, she received an invitation from xin ying, the principal of daoxianghu school of tsinghua university affiliated high school, and was able to return to campus.

more investment is put into cultivating children's mental personality. tennis is a highly personalized sport. no path to success can be completely replicated, and no family behind a player is not desperate. it is normal to be questioned and not understood. what we need to do is how to guide ryan not to be influenced by various external voices and to be firm in his own choices.

“never gave up looking for a more professional coach”

"china news weekly": looking back at the adult competitions zhang ruien has participated in, he often won 3 games in a row in the qualifying stage, but rarely reached the first round of the main competition, especially in the hope competition level, at least entering the main competition. points can only be earned in the second round, so zhang ruien's performance cannot be reflected in the points. what do you think of netizens jokingly calling zhang ruien "a typical wasted job"? why not just use the wild card provided by the brokerage company?

zhang yilei:at ryan's current age, he can only get 4 wild cards per year. the number is limited and we will use it with caution. in general low-level competitions, we don’t use wild cards and can only play qualifiers. they can't even qualify for the qualifying rounds, so they have to play in the wild card round, and then fight for the wild card in the qualifying rounds.

this is the case for the 2023 competition in antalya, turkey. the wild card round will start on wednesday. after getting the wild card, the qualifying round will be played. sign in on saturday, the qualifying round will start on sunday, and then the qualifying round will start on next tuesday. main race. in this way, we reached the top 8 and won 10 games in a row, using competition as training.

in addition, in ryan's games, there are almost never controversial decisions. even if there is an objection to the ball mark on a key point, she will not argue with the referee or her opponent. from a young age, i taught her that stealing points on the court was the same as stealing someone else's property. i have always taught ryan to always make judgments that are favorable to the opponent if he is unsure of the ball. so there will be no concept of deception or luck in her mind.

"china news weekly": when professional players reach a certain stage of development, they will face the problem of whether to "fly solo". leaving the parents who know them best, players may get a new space for development, or their performance may deteriorate sharply. in the future, when ryan reaches a certain stage of growth and has the opportunity to receive guidance from other coaches, will you quit her team?

zhang yilei:in fact, i never gave up on finding a more professional coach for ryan. family workshops may not be the most scientific way of training, but family must be the foundation for player growth. tennis is very cruel to the end, and athletes must bear more pressure alone. we will always be with her, and our family will always be the support she can rely on.

in today's world professional tennis world, only the top 100 players in the world can support themselves with match bonuses and live a relatively decent life. ryan still has a long way to go before crossing this harsh divide. in addition to talent and interest, she also needs to work several times harder than others, adhere to scientific training methods, and have a little luck in meeting a good coaching team.

author: li mingzi