Chinese tennis is booming through talent, investment … and distractions

A year ago this month, the 26-year-old Shanghai native Zhang Zhizhen, who hits a booming serve and plays with his long hair kept at bay beneath a headband, made history by becoming the first Chinese man to break into the top 100 of tennis’s world rankings. Four months later, he was joined by his compatriot Wu Yibing, who promptly went on to become the first Chinese man to win a title on the men’s tour – overcoming the American phenom Taylor Fritz in the process.

Welcome to the rise of Chinese tennis, in both player proficiency and infrastructure. If qualifying for grand slam main draws and climbing to double-figure rankings seem relatively modest achievements, it is proof of how historically underserved the sport has been in a country obsessed with basketball (and whose preference in racket sports has long been tennis of the table variety, as well as badminton).

Until last year, no Chinese man had so much as won a match at a major in the Open era. Chinese tennis fans have had few stars to follow: in the women’s game there was the charismatic Li Na, by far the country’s most successful singles player, who became its first grand slam singles champion (winning the French Open in 2011 and the Australian Open in 2014), and the Olympic medallists and doubles specialists Yan Zi and Zheng Jie. But, other than Li, there has never been a consistent presence on the global stage, and the men’s game in particular lagged behind.

That’s changing. In a world in which nations with less-than-stellar human rights records invest heavily in sport – a diversionary, soft-power tactic that isn’t new but perhaps is more prevalent and brazen than ever (see: the Saudi Pro League) – the Chinese administration has ploughed money into delivering what