Pundits call for changes in training mode of tennis in China

Tennis pundits have been calling for changes in training mode of the sport in China which witnessed Li Na becoming the first Asian to win a Grand Slam title in the French Open last June.

Li has made a series of breakthroughs after she formed her own coaching team at the end of 2008 and became a national heroine with the French Open triumph.

Li's success encouraged considerable Chinese teenagers to take up the rackets in recent years but the elite of the fledglings, who are now contesting at the Chinese City Games tennis tourney here in Nanchang, Jiangxi, still cut a poor figure.

Matthew Haugen, coach of north China's Shijiazhuang who was hired from the United States in April, said the traditional way of thinking is part of the reasons that lead to the still-lagging development of the sport in the most populous country.

"My players in the U.S. often want to know why I told them to do this or that, but the Chinese players believe they must do what I ask them to do," said Haugen, who has been a tennis coach in the United States for about six years.

Haugen is not the only coach to nose out the different type of thinking and training idea conducted in China.

In eyes of Haugen and other foreign coaches instructing players here, it's important for an under-18 tennis player to go to school and just spend two or three hours per day in training; and athletes will try more sports before they finally make decisions on future, but in China, most young players choose tennis since being a very small kid and have to give up studying for sport.

"It (studying) would help players a lot to improve their comprehensive understanding of the world and broaden their sight," said the American coach, adding that the Chinese players are easy to feel tired of the tough training.

Even the Chinese coaches started to find out what's going wrong.

"We conduct the training for all the players with the same idea, but for the foreign players the training method is always specially-designed," Fu Liping, team leader of host Nanchang, told Xinhua on Friday.

The City Games, held every four years, is designed for teenage athletes, aiming to put up backup forces for Chinese sports.