The story of Michael Chang’s improbable and rapid rise to tennis stardom, and his family’s immigrant journey, “30 for 30: American Son” will air today – Monday, July 29 – on ESPN, beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern.

If you don’t have cable, you can still catch the new documentary. Several streaming services will let you watch ESPN for free, including Fubo and DirecTV Stream, which both offer free trials for new customers. Sling is another option; it has promotional pricing offers for first-time users.

The documentary will also stream on ESPN+. The service does not offer a free trial, but those interested can sign up for a package starting at $10.99/month.

Chang is the youngest man in history to win a major tennis championship, capturing the 1989 French Open in upset fashion at just 17 years old. Chang won a total of 34 top-level professional singles titles, and he was a three-time major runner-up and achieved a career-high ranking of world No. 2 in 1996. In 2008, he was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

The movie “delves into Chang’s upbringing shaped by his family’s immigrant experience, his rapid rise in the tennis world, and the challenges he overcame to achieve success,” according to ESPN.

Here’s more on how you can watch the documentary’s premiere:

What: ESPN 30 for 30: American Son

When: Monday, July 29, 2024

Time: 7 p.m. Eastern

Channel: ESPN

Best Streaming Options: Fubo (free trial), DirecTV Stream (free trial), Sling (promotional offers), ESPN+

Channel finder if you have cable: You can access the channel by using the channel finders online: Verizon Fios, Comcast Xfinity, Spectrum/Charter, Optimum/Altice, DIRECTV and Dish.

Here’s Chang, and others, talking about the clay courts of Roland Garros, where Olympic tennis is taking place during the 2024 Paris Games:

Olympic tennis players return to the red clay of Paris’ Roland Garros after Wimbledon’s grass

PARIS (AP) — The competition surface doesn’t change for most Olympic sports. A pool’s a pool. A track’s a track. A wrestling mat’s a mat. And so on. Tennis? That’s a whole other story, with tournaments contested on clay, hard or grass courts — and now there’s a shift for the Paris Games.

For the first time in more than 30 years, the tennis competition at an Olympics will be held on red clay, which means players who recently made the adjustment from the dirt at the French Open in early June to grass at Wimbledon in early July will need to reverse course again in short order.

The “terre battue” at Roland Garros used for the French Open hosts Olympic matches starting on July 27 — two weeks after Wimbledon wrapped up with singles titles for Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and Carlos Alcaraz of Spain — and the transition back to that site is more concerning to some athletes than others.

“That’ll definitely be interesting. But everyone’s kind of doing it. We’ll all be in the same boat,” said Jessica Pegula, an American ranked in the top 10 who is expected to play singles, women’s doubles with U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff and perhaps mixed doubles, too. “I usually don’t struggle too much with switching. And I like how the courts play there. It might be easier than some other places we play on clay. When the weather is warm in Paris, it plays pretty true. There’s a good speed. There’s not a lot to get used to.”

For her, maybe.

“It’s going to be the first time for me, going from grass to clay,” said Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the 2022 Wimbledon champion and a semifinalist there this month. “It’s not easy. Physically, it’s not easy, (or) mentally.”

One additional factor on some players’ minds: There will be another brief turnaround after the Olympics to prepare for the move to the hard courts ahead of the U.S. Open, which starts in late August. That’s less than a month after the medals are awarded in France.

“It’s awful for the schedule,” said Taylor Fritz, Pegula’s teammate for the United States and someone who just reached the quarterfinals at the All England Club. “It makes absolutely no sense. It screws everything up, for sure.”

Tennis becomes a different sport, in some key ways, depending on where it’s being played.

“You have to adapt to it. … It’s going to be weird, obviously, going back on the clay quickly,” said Cam Norrie, who will represent Britain at the Olympics, “but we’re changing surface and changing variables all the time.”

Clay is softer and slower, which can dull the power on serves and groundstrokes and create longer exchanges, putting a premium on stamina, while the grittiness can magnify the effect of heavy topspin. Grass is speedier and balls bounce lower. Hard courts tend to produce truer, midrange bounces and generally will reward those who go for point-ending shots.

The biggest difference among them might be the footwork. Clay requires sliding. Grass is more about choppy steps, to avoid slipping. Hard courts generally do not cause as many falls as either of the others.

“For a clay-court player, the adjustment’s not that hard,” 1989 French Open champion Michael Chang said. “For (people) that have grown up playing on the surface, you just know the surface so well.”

So someone like Iga Swiatek, who has won four of the past five French Opens, should feel comfortable and confident on clay, by far her best surface.

The same goes, of course, for Rafael Nadal, a 14-time champion at Roland Garros. Novak Djokovic has won at least three Grand Slam titles at each of the sport’s biggest events, the only man to do so, and the adjustments required come rather naturally to him.

Then again, Alcaraz, whose title at Roland Garros this year made him, at 21, the youngest man to win a major trophy on clay, hard and grass courts, had this to say about going from London to Paris: “It’s not easy to change surfaces in just a week.”