Sunday September 26 will be marked in the history of tennis: the title won by Juancheng Shang at the M15 in Fayetteville (he beat Briton Mark Whitehouse -693º- in the final) it represented the first professional championship obtained by a player in the 2005 category. It seems incredible to think that players born a decade and a half ago can already win competitions of this level . However, for a long time, the followers of the Junior circuit have been talking about this player, who seeks to take the Chinese flag to the top of the sport.
The son of former soccer player Yi Shang and former table tennis player Na Wu, the 16-year-old is keen to break multiple records. In fact, he was also the first of his litter to win an ITF event (in 2009). Likewise, it has already reached the quarterfinals of Roland Garros, the semifinals of Wimbledon Junior and the final of the US Open, where he fell to Spaniard Daniel Rincón. Beyond the fact that he is playing some professional tournaments, he continues to lead the classification among youth, where he won in a J1, JB1 and a JA.
Although he was born in China, Jerry -as he is known in the environment- lives and trains daily at the IMG Academy for two years and has the possibility to exchange practices with other colleagues who are already in the circuit such as Michael Mmoh or Sebastian Korda. “I am very happy to train at the academy and to be able to learn from the coaches. There is a great team and I am proud to be part of it,” he said in a video posted on Youtube channel from the high performance center located in Florida. In addition, he said that his coach is Martin Damm, who knew how to be champion of the 2006 US Open doubles together with Leander Paes and also of 39 other tournaments in the category. “He is teaching me how to improve, how to be aggressive and how to play in the decisive points. Also, he is teaching me the technique of serving and how to attack the first ball after serving,” he explained. Johnny Parks is another of the coaches guiding his future.
A MORE THAN AUSPICIOUS DEBUT
Shang received an invitation to participate in the preliminary phase of the Miami Masters 1000 in March of this year. Despite the difficulty of the case and being his absolute debut in the super elite, the game did not weigh on him and even He came very close to beating Liam Broady. So much so that he fell in a tight score 4-6, 6-1 and 7-6 (6) in the first round. In any case, he recognized that participation was very important in order to gain experience. There, he was able to train with Denis Shapovalov, with whom many compare him for his left-handedness, and with the Serbian Miomir Kecmanovic. “My game has become much more aggressive since I train with professionals. I am learning to defend and counterattack,” he said in a statement to the website of the EXPERT.
“It is a daily job. Nothing happens overnight“He said in the middle of his last participation in the US Open. He is just 16 years old, but his name will appear more and more often in the main news of the sports media.
.