At the Australian Open, Shang Juncheng leads the Chinese talent

MELBOURNE, Australia Shang Juncheng could have chosen his father’s sport of soccer or his mother’s sport of table tennis. His father, Shang Yi, was a leading Chinese midfielder, good enough to play for the national team. His mother, Wu Na, was a world champion in singles.

Instead, their son became a tennis player who left home in Beijing at the age of 11 to train at a Florida academy.

On Monday in Melbourne, it looked like he had made a wise choice. Shang, a 17-year-old qualifier and the youngest player in the men’s draw, showed rare skill and maturity in making his Grand Slam debut, becoming the first Chinese man to win the Australian Open singles in the Open era.

He did it with a gritty, often beautiful, 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (2), 7-5 opening-day victory over Oscar Otte, an unseeded 29-year-old German with a good serve and a full beard. Shang, who will face American Frances Tiafoe in the second round, did so on Court 13 as hundreds of fans gathered in the stands and shouted encouragement in Mandarin and English.

I felt like I was playing at home, he said.

Shang, nicknamed Jerry, is fluent in both languages ​​after spending so much of his youth in the United States. Although he was interested in soccer in his early years, he said his mother suggested tennis because she believed there were fewer injuries. Shang first played indoor in Beijing and said he liked it from the start.

The most important goal for me was to become a professional tennis player, even at the age of 6-7, he said in an interview. We started training in China in Beijing. That’s where I started indoor, and my dad played soccer in Spain, so he really liked the system and the way Spanish athletes work.

But instead of settling in Spain, the family chose Shang to train at the Emilio Sanchez Academy, operated by former Spanish ATP player Emilio Sanchez in Naples, Fla.

Shang later moved to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., a longtime center for the game, and is managed by IMG, the agency that represents several other Chinese players, including Li Na, who is retired.

But Shang, once the world’s top junior, is the youngest member of a promising new wave that includes Wu Yibing, 23, and Zhang Zhizhen, 26.

All three were in the main series this year in Melbourne. This is the first time three Chinese men have played singles at the same major in the Open era that began in 1968.

On Monday, when Shang broke on Court 13, Wu was on the adjacent Court 14, playing a grinding rally with France’s Corentin Moutet before losing in five sets.

Wu, who also trains at IMG Academy, reached the third round of last year’s US Open, where Zhang lost in the first round. Now Shang, a dynamic left-hander who looks like the group’s most promising talent, has joined them at this level.

Now we have three players in the top 200 and I’m happy to be one of them, Shang said. The other two are like older brothers to me and have been on tour much longer than I have. We practice a lot and talk about how the game is right now and how we can get higher. For me, every step is a learning step right now. I’m at a young stage in my career, I’ve only been playing professional tennis for the second year. So for me it’s just watching how they do things, like we’ve also watched Li Na and how she did things.

Shang wears an earring in his left ear.

My father has had it for a long time, he said. When I was about 10 years old, I thought I wanted to be like dad, so we went to get it together. I’ve had it for a long time.

Shang said his parents nicknamed him Jerry when he was very young after the mouse from the Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Tom always got into trouble and Jerry was smart, so they thought it was better to choose Jerry, Shang said.

He plays tennis skillfully, changing gears and speeds often to avoid giving his opponents a steady rhythm. But his top gear is impressive, especially when he dictates terms with a quick backhand. In the face-off, he showed clever flying pain as well as plenty of composure: he avoided the temptation to rush between points and collect himself. He completed the victory with a bold, leaping backhand winner.

He is a complete player, said his new coach Dante Bottini. He can read the court and the game very well, so that’s what surprised me the most when I started working with him. He knows a lot about the game for someone his age.

Bottini coached Japanese star Kei Nishikori and recently worked with Chile’s Nicols Jarry and Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov, both of whom once trained with Shang at the IMG Academy.

Bottini began coaching Shang in the preseason after being recruited by Li Xi, Shang’s primary agent, a former Chinese player on the University of Virginia women’s team who sat courtside Monday in a bucket hat next to Shang’s father, Yi.

Shang has had no shortage of coaches in his short career, including Marcelo Ros, the former Chilean number one who worked with Shang for a short time last year. Although Shang won his first Challenger title in Lexington, Ky., during their partnership, they soon parted ways.

“It was sad that it didn’t work out in the end, but he brought things to my game,” Shang said.

Ros, once ranked No. 1 on the ATP Tour, is left-handed like Shang, but Shang said his biggest inspiration has been another left-handed No. 1: Rafael Nadal.

Shang first saw him play in person at the men’s ATP event in Beijing, and while Shang said he hadn’t returned to China as a 14-year-old because of the coronavirus pandemic, he is eager to play there again when the country reopens. enables international tournaments such as the Beijing event or the Masters 1000 tournament in Shanghai to continue.

It would be great to play at home in China, he said.

For now, given the supportive atmosphere on Monday, he will have to settle for playing at home in Australia, but on Wednesday he should face a bigger challenge in Tiafoe, last year’s US Open semi-finalist, who is ranked No. 16 in Melbourne.

“Jerrys is obviously having a great tournament, but we have to keep his feet on the ground,” Bottini said. He has a lot of potential, as we can all see, but we have to take it little by little. I think he has a great career ahead of him.