Chinese men's tennis, first step towards Global Domination?

[Chicharito]

China : Wu Di Wins Nation’s First Challenger Title

Asian tennis experienced a landmark moment last week. More than one billion people hail from China, yet on Sunday, Wu Di stood above the rest. The Wuhan native became the nation's first ATP Challenger Tour singles titlist, stunning top seedKyle Edmund 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in two hours and seven minutes in Maui. He saved 11 of 15 break points faced and overcame strong winds that penetrated the Royal Lahaina Resort throughout the match, creating tough conditions.

“Today I gave 100 per cent energy,” Wu told broadcaster Mike Cation following the match. “Chinese players have never won a Challenger. I did well on the court to fight and it was amazing. For sure [I feel the pressure in China]. The Chinese fans follow you and want you to win. I wanted to become the first man to win a title. I'm really happy.”

The 24 year old will return to the Top 200 of the Emirates ATP Rankings with his maiden crown. He enjoyed a fruitful off-season entering 2016 that included a training block with Novak Djokovic, Milos Raonic and Andreas Seppi in Monte-Carlo, followed by a successful qualifying campaign at the Australian Open. Wu had dropped two previous Challenger title matches, in Beijing 2012 and in a third set tie-break in Shanghai 2015.

"We made the appointment with Novak during the Shanghai Rolex Masters. It's extremely difficult to get a point from Novak when we play together. He is like a wall. I see a big distance to reach his level and I'm not expecting it, but I found myself with the potential to improve and make progress."

Wu Di (career high rank 161), and has 3 slam appearances (all at AO)
While Zang Ze has been as high as 148 and played in Melbourne twice.

China needs to focus on getting some regular top 100 players, appearing in every slam. Then take it from there. However I feel we will see a lot of landmarks being broken between now and 2040.

The standard bearer of Chinese male tennis is Kho Sin-Kie, he reached the 4th round of Wimbledon and the French in 1936. A bit like Kei Nishikori and Jiro Sato, Andy Murray and Fred Perry. These are the droughts that need to be ended.

Global domination may be unlikely but we should have Chinese men as a staple of the top ten in 20 years or so.

 

[tipsa...don'tlikehim!]

He is a good player, in Beijing he managed to break Nadal 4 times (yeah Nadal was serving poorly all year but still not bad), and better, in Shanghai he had a match point to upset Cilic in the 1st round, crazy match lost in the 3rd set tie breaker.

 

[Meles]

Let's come back and check this thread in 20 years.

 

[uscwang]

For a long time, table tennis and badminton are the top sports for kids in China. Li Na failed to qualify for her local badminton team. Lucky for her, a tennis coach spotted her and the rest is history.

 

[ultradr]

For a long time, table tennis and badminton are the top sports for kids in China. Li Na failed to qualify for her local badminton team. Lucky for her, a tennis coach spotted her and the rest is history.

That's how she got into tennis? it's amazing how she managed to go to college, get married and then come back to tour to win slams !

 

[jaggy]

He can't fail

 

[La Grande]

Let's come back and check this thread in 20 years.

basically

 

[HipRotation]

Will be much more difficult on the men's side of things. Even with China's militant approach to sport such fierce scouting and training is the norm in most countries anyway and a sport as traditional (Anglo-European) and institutionalized (mainly Western Europe at the moment) as Tennis is a difficult sport for them to dominate. For them to succeed they'll probably need to invest their players into the European system like many of the current top players and like many Chinese do in other sports, join the winning institutions and take what they can get. But because of this, Chinese players can only be as good as any other nation's who have a junior training in Spain, Germany etc. The chances of any real domination a very slim in our lifetime.