American tennis legend Michael Chang is likely to coach Chinese
player Peng Shuai, a tennis official confirmed on Sunday.
The Chinese-American worked with Peng, a 21-year-old from
Tianjin, during the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells California
last week.
China Daily confirmed that negotiations between Chang
and Tianjin Sports Bureau are underway.
"There is some possibility that Chang will be able to team up
with Peng," said Gao Shenyang, vice-director of China's Tennis
Administrative Center. "Officials from Tianjin want Chang to coach
Peng so they started to contact Chang in January."
According to Gao, a leading official from Tianjin held talks
with Chang in the United States last week but both sides have yet
to reach a decision.
"We have kept in touch with Chang in recent months and I think
his arrival will be quite good for us," Gao said. "It's still the
early stages, but everything is possible between Chang and
Tianjin," he said.
The 34-year-old Chinese-American, known as Zhang Depei in China,
first expressed his interest in coaching the Chinese tennis team at
the Masters Cup in Shanghai in November. However his anticipated
role as coach of Li Na and Peng Shuai failed to materialize.
"It's not a sure bet that a great player can be an equally great
coach," China's tennis chief Sun Jinfang said at the time. "I think
he can get in touch with our women's players first, to see if the
girls like working with their childhood hero, that's very very
important as we are a whole team not only one or two
individuals."
Chang, however, did his homework in an effort to help land the
first job of his coaching career. He spent five weeks improving his
putonghua at a school in Beijing before the Masters Cup and also
watched some of Li and Zheng Jie's matches.
Chang's possible involvement in Chinese tennis has been welcomed
by the players.
"I think it's good for Peng Shuai and good for this sport in
China," China's top women's player Li, who reached the semifinals
at the Pacific Life Open, was quoted as saying. "China has a lot of
good players and the Federation has been trying to find a lot of
good coaches to teach the players."
Peng, now World No 40, had a successful year in 2005 when she
soared in the rankings and beat a series of elite opponents
including Anastasia Myskina, Nadia Petrova, former world No 1
Belgian Kim Clijsters and Elena Dementieva in her two Tier I event
semifinal appearances. She reached a then national record ranking
of 32 last August.
But her performance slipped the following year as she suffered
seven first round exits in 13 tournaments. She lost in the second
round at the Australian Open this year and her best result so far
is a semifinal finish at the Pattaya City Open in February.
Chang became the youngest French Open champion in history after
beating Stefan Edberg in a five-set thriller in the 1989 final at
the age of 17. He was among the very best players in the 1990's
along with fellow countrymen Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and Jim
Courier.
(China Daily March 20, 2007)