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12/29/09 10:54 PM | Johan Lindahl
Michael Chang will join a few of his former tennis rivals in Hong Kong after the New Year for an exhibition pitting retired male and active female players on court at Victoria Park.
Others in the field at the Hong Kong Tennis Classic include ex-top Thai Paradorn Srichaphan, Swede Stefan Edberg and newly retired Marat Safin. The women: Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, Caroline Wozniacki, Victoria Azarenka and Vera Zvonareva.
Chang never misses the chance for a trip to Asia, where he single-handedly sparked the tennis boom in the region nearly two decades ago.
The 1989 Roland Garros winner believes that for China to lift the non-existent level of its men on the ATP, coaching will have to come up to the same standards enjoyed by the much more successful Chinese
women.
The closest men ever came to matching their female counterparts in the region was through Srichaphan, who reached a career-high ninth ranking and won five singles titles before a wrist injury forced him
out in 2007.
He played in doubles at the September Thailand Open, mainly for old time's sake while still insisting that he has not yet retired at age 30.
"It's not that easy for some of these players in China to get the coaching they need," said Chang, a former world No. 2. "Nearly all of these Chinese girls that have had success have had coaching from foreign coaches.
"You can work really hard, but if you're not training in the right way you're not going to improve and get to the level that you want to."
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