As the ATP and WTA Tours move from Beijing to Shanghai and Wuhan, China’s long wait for a big presence in men’s tennis looks a little shorter.

Zheng Qinwen has established herself as a force in women’s tennis in 2024 by winning an Olympic gold medal and reaching the Australian Open final, but China’s male players have made striking success of their own in the last fortnight, even if none of them are on a level with their WTA compatriot just yet.

Men’s tennis has languished behind the women’s game in China. Zheng, who is into the China Open semifinals in Berlin, has followed on from the two Grand Slam titles that Li Na won in the 2010s. There are six Chinese women inside the WTA top 100, compared to three Chinese men in the ATP top 100. Until this year, China laid claim to just one ATP title — Wu Yibing’s triumph at the Dallas Open in 2023, which is a 250-level event and the lowest rung on the main tour.

The underperformance was such a source of shame that in early 2022, Chinese journalist Zhang Bendou said: “Men’s tennis in China has been a myth for many years. China can send rockets to space, among many other great things, but we just haven’t produced even one ATP top-100 player.

“We have been waiting too long.”

Zhang Zhizhen soon righted that particular wrong in October 2022, and Wu joined him shortly after. Two years on, this year’s Asian swing has seen things come together for the country’s leading male players. At last month’s Chengdu Open (also a 250), Shang Juncheng, 19 and known as Jerry, beat Wimbledon semifinalist Lorenzo Musetti to double the number of ATP titles won by Chinese players. He also became the first to win one on home soil.

Meanwhile, at the Hangzhou Open that was happening simultaneously, Zhang, 27, and Bu Yunchaokete (Buyunchaokete in Mongolian, which has no patronymic nor family name), 22, competed in the first ever all-Chinese ATP semifinal. Zhang won the match but lost to a resurgent Marin Cilic in the final.

Things got even better this week when Bu became the first Chinese player to reach the Beijing Open semifinals, pushing the world No. 1 Jannik Sinner hard in a 6-3, 7-6 defeat. Bu beat Musetti and the world No 6 Andrey Rublev along the way. After the match Sinner said: “He is a very, very good young player.

“We’ll see him in the future on bigger stages. It takes a bit of time, but if he keeps coming up with this kind of level, he will reach what he is dreaming of.”

All of which means that China now has three players in the ATP top 70, with Zhang at 41, Shang at 51 and Bu at 69. Wu, who was as high as 54 last year, is way down the standings after struggling with injury.

This recent improvement can partly be explained by the boost of home advantage during a part of the year that is most challenging for players from the rest of the world. In a particularly gruelling schedule, the travel across the world has an impact — and Zhang and Bu themselves have already exited the Shanghai Masters after their recent exploits.

That does not lessen the considerable buzz in China about this clutch of players. Many of them are close in age, coming through at the same sort of time and hopefully pushing each other towards the kind of achievements Zheng has managed this year.

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Tennis has become a lot more prominent in China over the last couple of decades, but it still lags some way behind the most popular sports, including football and basketball. In a 2023 survey by Kangan, a subsidiary of S&P Global, tennis was the third-most popular sport to watch at home, but its 28 per cent was far from the 53 and 58 per cent figures for football and basketball. Its relatively modest achievements are all the more staggering in light of its participation figures. A 2019 ITF survey, released well before Zheng’s ascent, put participation at around 20million people.

There’s been a surge in recreational tennis in China following Zheng’s Olympic gold in the summer, building on the increased popularity of tennis post-pandemic. Like all sports, tennis was hit by the Covid-19 lockdown, but it benefited during the period when social distancing restrictions were still in place because it could be played in a way that other sports couldn’t. Tennis has also been branded in China and other east Asian countries in recent years as more of a lifestyle sport, and this has helped it achieve greater cut-through.

Fans have filled stadiums for Zheng Qinwen’s matches in Beijing. (Adek Berry / AFP via Getty Images)

Going a lot further back, an important moment in Chinese tennis came in 2009 when an agreement was reached ending the previous system where the Chinese Tennis Association (CTA) took a big chunk of the players’ revenues.

There have also been various moments over the last 20 years that have, either briefly or otherwise, elevated the sport’s popularity. The Olympics has a huge nationwide appeal, and so Li Ting and Sun Tiantian winning the women’s doubles gold in Athens in 2004 was a big moment. Yan Zi and Zheng Jie won the bronze four years later when Beijing hosted the Games, after which the Chinese government made sweeping investments and policy changes to improve sporting infrastructure in the country.

These achievements paled in comparison to Li winning China’s only singles Grand Slam titles at Roland Garros in 2011 and the Australian Open in 2014. She retired later that year.

On the face of it, China hasn’t really built on Li’s legacy. Peng Shuai reached the semifinals at the U.S. Open in 2014 but until Zheng’s emergence this year, China hadn’t produced a top singles player since Li, despite Zhang Shuai reaching two major singles quarterfinals and winning two majors in women’s doubles. But Li has still inspired the next generation, as all of Zhang, Shang, Wu and Bu point to her as an icon; Zheng was starstruck after meeting Li at this year’s Australian Open.

Chinese tennis experts make the case that without Li showing what could be achieved, these players might well not be in the position in which they find themselves.

Zheng’s successes may end up having a similar effect. Her fame in the country has skyrocketed, and she called the atmosphere at her matches in Beijing “insane” at a press conference. China’s investment into tennis has extended outside its borders as the sport’s popularity has grown internally, and while the CTA still provides support for its players with things like training centres and physios, the development of the players coming through in 2024 has a distinctly international feel.

Zhou Yi, Zhang Zhizhen, Shang Juncheng, and Wu Yibing in Shanghai. (Courtesy of Rolex Shanghai Masters)

Zheng herself has lived and trained in Spain since 2019, while Shang moved to Florida at 11 and is a product of the IMG academy in Bradenton, Florida. Wu, having developed at Chinese provincial level, also signed with IMG after winning the U.S. Open junior title in 2017, while Zhang, who at 27 is more established than the other top Chinese players, moved to Croatia three years ago to work with Roger Federer’s former coach and the one-time world No 3, Ivan Ljubicic.

Bu, meanwhile, has spent time at Juan Carlos Ferrero’s academy in Spain, alongside the great Carlos Alcaraz. He and Zhang still came up through the Chinese system, and his seemingly sudden emergence is one of the most interesting elements of this developing story.

Bu, who sometimes goes by Bert, comes from an ethnically Mongolian family and was born in the Mongolian autonomous region in Xinjiang. His father died when he was five and, in keeping with local tradition, he stayed with his father’s family rather being looked after by his mum, who remarried.

Bu lived with his paternal grandparents, who wanted him to have a better education so sent him to Urumqi, the provincial capital of Xinjiang. He was educated at the SOS child village for children who have been parted from their families, where he was spotted by tennis coach Yong Luo.

Yong helped him develop his game in Huzhou City, Zhejiang, and from there Bu thrived: he won the prestigious Orange Bowl International Tennis Championship under-14 title in 2016. He achieved a junior ranking of No 5 a few years later and started playing ITF events as a teenager. It was long assumed that Bu was an orphan because of his school background, but he still sees his mum and stepdad, as well as his grandparents who still live in the Mongolian autonomous region.

“The path I have taken is different from others,” Bu has since said. His coaches from back then say he was always built different and phenomenally determined to succeed.

The Covid-19 pandemic halted Bu’s progress, but last year he began to make strides, winning a first Challenger title in Seoul and a main draw match at the Shanghai Masters. He then stepped things up in 2024, recovering from an injury to qualify for the U.S. Open and then reaching the semis at both the Hangzhou and the China Opens.

His long-term coach, Yu Jinxing, says a big element of Bu’s improvement this year has been in his mindset — trusting himself to play more aggressively and backing himself against the best players. In the last couple of weeks, he has beaten three current or former top-15 players in Rublev, Musetti and Karen Khachanov. Bu has also added the recently retired former world No 193 Li Zhe to his coaching team, who has been a useful sounding board for the pressures of being a Chinese player. Ricardo Ojeda Lara, a Spanish coach, is also part of the team, illustrating again the international dimension of this group of players.

Bu looks increasingly comfortable at the net and enjoys working a crowd. He has cited Andy Murray as an inspiration. “I admire his resilience,” Bu told Chinese reporters.

“Especially during the ‘Big Three’ era. His belief in success despite failures resonates with me.”

Bu Yunchaokete (Buyunchaokete in Mongolian language) made history by reaching the semifinal in Beijing. (Zhe Ji / Getty Images)

As a group, the players all have different styles and personalities. Zhang is tall (6 feet 4 inches/193cm) with a big serve and forehand. He has started achieving good doubles results this year as well, reaching the semis at the Australian Open and the quarters at Roland Garros — both with the Czech player Tomas Machac. Zhang also won a mixed doubles silver at the Paris Olympics with Wang Xinyu, losing to Machac and Katerina Siniakova in the final.

Shang is a lot smaller and plays a more tactical game, though he can be powerful and aggressive. A leftie, he plays with a lot of variety, including an effective drop shot, and to be one place off the world’s top 50 while still a teenager is some going. After beating Hong Kong’s Coleman Wong in Shanghai on Wednesday, he takes on Beijing champion Carlos Alcaraz on Saturday.

Wu, who reached the Shanghai third round with a straight-sets win over Nicolas Jarry on Wednesday, is a very clean ball-striker, and when he’s on his game he’s great to watch, possessing exceptional placement and an ability to move his opponents around. Wu is close with his near-contemporary Bu, having grown up in the Zhejiang province where his compatriot moved to after being spotted as a tennis talent.

The players are all pretty close with one another, with Zhang on hand to offer advice as the senior man, though he says the other players don’t need it. “We do interact with each other, send pictures to each other, and Bu also asks me whether I can help him get a concert ticket, and I said I would try,” Zhang said this week in a Shanghai press conference.

“It’s amazing to have a lot of players, it’s a push for all of us,” Shang added in press this week.

“We’re competing against each other in some ways, and also trying to encourage each other to play better tennis, so I think that’s a big improvement for all of us.”

This quartet of players, plus 19-year-old wildcard Zhou Yi (who beat Yoshihito Nishioka via a retirement on Thursday and faces Frances Tiafoe next) meant China had a record five players in the Shanghai draw.

Shang Juncheng is considered a hugely promising talent at just 19. (Emanuel Wong / Getty Images)

Those on the ground say it’s all adding up to a feeling of anticipation in Shanghai, with good crowds expected — especially for the home players’ matches. “I never thought it would be so full in the centre court,” Zheng said of playing at the China Open on the weekend. It was full again for her three-set defeat of Mirra Andreeva, and no doubt will be the same for her semifinal against Karolina Muchova. The second week of Beijing and the first week of Shanghai fall during Golden Week, a Chinese national holiday in which people typically travel internally.

China still has plenty of development to do as a tennis nation, but the emergence of Challenger tournaments in the country and the Chengdu Open in the mid-2010s, as well as the new Hangzhou Open, have helped its profile and accessibility for players.

It also has a lot of development to do in its relations with the tennis world. There is still a great deal of controversy around the country as a tennis nation in the wake of Peng Shuai’s disappearance after she accused the country’s former vice-premier, Zhang Gaoli, of sexually assaulting her three years ago. The WTA then stopped hosting events in China, before returning last year, having been unable to sustain its boycott.

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Though the regular tour stops in the country have resumed, the sport’s relationship with China is still recovering, and while Peng retracted her accusations, the nature of that retraction and her subsequent retirement left unanswered questions.

For the country’s male players, it feels like the next week or so in Shanghai presents an opportunity to capitalise on a wave of enthusiasm and build on the recent momentum they have generated.

Then it’ll be about trying to make an impact at the Australian Open in January, with the chance to really elevate China’s profile in men’s tennis with a long overdue run at a Grand Slam.

(Top photo: Bai Xuefei / Xinhua via Getty Images)