Every year we see how numerous young tennis players make the leap to professional tennis and one of those cases is that of Chinese tennis Shang Juncheng. At 17, he has become the first Chinese to play the main draw of Indian Wells and the first player from his country to qualify for a Masters 1000.
Shang Juncheng has granted an interview for the official page of the ATP in which he highlighted how special it is for him to see this achievement achieved: “It has been very special to see what I have achieved, but now the most important thing for me is to continue progressing and advancing”.
The 17-year-old tennis player will face the Spanish Jaume Munar in the first round of Indian Wells. In China there is great expectation around Juncheng and they eagerly hope that soon he can enter the Top 100 of the ATP ranking.
The Chinese journalist Chang Bendou highlighted the expectations that the Asian country has with Juncheng: “Right now every move by Juncheng is big news and he is being closely followed by Chinese fans. Men’s tennis in China is still waiting for a player to break into the Top 100 and we hope that this wait ends soon”, Bendou pointed out.
His parents introduced him to tennis
“My parents loved tennis, they were both athletes, so sport for them was an everyday thing. I remember that in a facility I heard many players hitting the ball and I loved the sound. My parents put me in to play and that’s how it all started,” said Shang Juncheng.
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“When they are young, all players pick up a racket and dream of being like them and playing on the same stages. I was one of them and now having the opportunity to be here makes me very happy”.
Shang trained at China’s Sánchez-Casal Nanjing Academy, an offshoot of the academy run by Spanish legend Emilio Sánchez. Shang’s father played football in Spain, so there was familiarity in that sense.
“He trusted a lot in the process of training Spanish players and, in fact, we were going to go to Spain,” recalls Shang. “But we found out that Emilio Sánchez had moved to the United States, so that’s why we entered the Naples academy.”
Emilio Sánchez hallucinated with his potential
“When Shang is known in the world, tennis fans will be amazed by him. It is very difficult to break him, for a very short boy he has a great physique that makes him stay alive on the track. He does things smoothly and absorbs any kind of power from opponents very, very nicely.”
Li Na, an example for Shang to follow
“She was one of my references to believe in and seeing her win the Grand Slams was very special to me, especially seeing that Chinese players can win gave me a lot of hope.”
To finish, the young Chinese player pointed out that right now he is focused on the match against Juame Munar and that he has achieved “one of his biggest goals this year”, which was to reach the final phase of a Masters 1000.
