Tennis legend Lee Hyung-taek (center), coach of the Orion Junior Tennis Team, stands side by side with his students while pushing a tennis ball cart at the Monarch Tennis Club in Songdo, Incheon. From left, Park Ye-seo, Jeong Yeon-soo, Kim Dong-min, and Kim Jang-jun. /Reporter Kim Ji-ho
Lee Hyung-taek (48) is known as a ‘celebrity’ to the younger generation. In various broadcast programs, he showed off his versatile athletic skills, including soccer and golf, and his succinct speaking skills. However, he is remembered as a pioneer of Korean men’s tennis. He is the protagonist who won the ATP (Men’s Professional Tennis) Tour and advanced to the round of 16 of a Grand Slam tournament ahead of Hyun Chung and Soon-Woo Kwon. After retirement, he engaged in various activities such as broadcasting, YouTuber, and chairman of the Tennis Academy Foundation, and in July 2022, he added the role of coach of the Orion Junior Tennis Team to his resume. “I want to pass on the experience and know-how accumulated through international competitions to develop players who will play in major competitions,” he expressed his ambition. Recently met at the Monarch Tennis Club in Songdo, Incheon, he said, “There is still a long way to go, but we are off to a good start,” and “The most important thing is to play aggressively and have a sense of challenge.”
-Comparing when you first took charge and now.
“Kim Jang-jun, who was ranked 182nd in the junior world when he joined, rose to 11th and advanced to the round of 16 twice in this year’s Junior Grand Slam tournament. Jeong Yeon-soo and Kim Dong-min are members of the youth national team. Our team players have won 8 singles and 20 doubles titles in international competitions. “It’s not a bad start.”
-Is there anything that was difficult?
“For tennis players, an individual sport, the idea of training and lodging together is unfamiliar. I didn’t really understand what it meant to belong to an organization or how valuable it was to receive support. “As time passed, I could see the children feeling proud.”
-What do you emphasize most to your players?
“It’s an aggressive play. Korean players have lower physique requirements than Western players. So we need to confront it more aggressively and boldly. And you can only raise your level if you keep challenging yourself on big stages. When I was young, my sister (Park) Seong-hee, who had competed on the world stage at an early age, told me, ‘Don’t get hung up on small domestic tournaments and go play in the Grand Slam qualifiers.’ At that time, I was the opposite. Rather than missing out on points and rankings by being eliminated in the first round of a Grand Slam, I had a strong desire to maintain my ranking by accumulating points in smaller tournaments. I regret that my career would have been much better if I had taken my sister’s advice and tried three years earlier. “You must always listen to the stories of people who have experienced it first.”
-How do you select young players?
“The goal is to challenge for the Grand Slam. Therefore, players also place more emphasis on possibilities rather than immediate results. It is more important to be able to play aggressively and boldly than to have current rankings or awards. And you have to have a good appetite to survive overseas tours well. He also gives a lot of advice to players after they shed the ‘junior’ tag. When most people graduate from high school, they go to a domestic university and join a corporate team and settle down, but rather than that, it is recommended that they enroll in a foreign university and compete with foreign players of the same age and gain experience. “If you stay in the country, your sense of challenge is bound to drop.”
-I heard you are returning as a player.
“It is not an international competition, but there is a domestic competition where players over 45 years old compete. I even had knee surgery to try to do that. Since my knee is not fully healed yet and I missed the timing, I plan to compete in doubles next year. “I think I need that kind of motivation to be able to build my body.”
-During my time as a player, I played against many top stars. Are there any memorable matches?
“It was when I faced Pete Sampras, who was the best at the time, in the round of 16 of the 2000 US Open. I was also curious about how I would fare against him. But the day before the game, I woke up every two hours. I was afraid. I was afraid that I would lose all three sets without winning a single game in a match that was broadcast around the world. However, not only did they win the game in the first set, but they went to a tiebreak. After that game, I gained confidence that I wanted to compete with other top players. I worked with Andy Roddick, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Carlos Ferrero, Marat Safin, and Andre Agassi. Of course, I barely won. Still, there was something to be gained. That’s why I’m pushing them to experience a bigger stage.”
