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A girl, a ball, a net, a wall

A Taiwanese girl and her friend light up thecourts as they try to snag entriesat a Clearwater women's tennis tournament.

By JOHN BARRY
Published February 26, 2006

CLEARWATER -- At 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, fog had just lifted off the practice courts at the McMullen Tennis Complex. The courts were empty, except for the first one, where two very young-looking Taiwanese girls were hitting the ball.

They started by lobbing back and forth. Then the small one planted herself at the baseline and they went at it. The taller girl, 19, had a big serve, but the little one, just 15, is what they call a "wall." You could launch a cannonball at her and it would come right back at you, harder. Her returns, one after another, after another, fairly whistled.

Time was ticking down toward their actual matches at 11. Both were trying to make it through a wild-card tournament in hopes of a back door entry into this week's Clearwater Women's Open. The wild card, the absolute bottom rung of the competition, was open to all comers. You signed up and showed what you got. Twenty-one took a shot. Four would make it.

Twenty minutes before match time the Taiwanese girls still had the courts to themselves. The taller one played the net. The "wall" never left the baseline. Both were sweating. They spoke only fleeting bits of Chinese. Neither breathed hard.

Alex Vely, the McMullen pro, had a wistful look as he watched the one at the baseline. "The next superpower in tennis is the Chinese," he said.

"The wall, the wall," he said, sing-song. "Once she's bigger and stronger, the sky's the limit."

The two girls whaled away, right up to match time.

n n n

Chang Kai-Chen is the wall. But off-court she's more the ball, all teenage motion and energy. She is just 5 feet 5 and looks smaller than her tennis backpack. But she has unmistakable athletic instincts, and every gesture is charged. Her friend Chen Yi is the quiet one.

They both attend International Tennis Academy USA in Delray Beach, where they have been sent by the National Team in Taiwan. At 19, Yi is ready, or needs to be ready, to make her run in professional women's tennis. She has a world ranking somewhere near 700.

At 15, Kai-Chen is all potential, all dreams. She has no ranking. No one has ever heard of her. She's just a schoolgirl who plays and studies.

She has learned some English at school, and a lot more on the courts.

If she makes it in women's tennis, most of that won't change much. There's not much change to be had in tennis.

"It's 15 or 20 years of the same routine," says her coach, former pro Johnnie Brown. "It's a tough way to make a living. Only so many make any money. Even the top 100 players in the world may end up with only $30,000 a year after they pay for their coaching and housing and air fare. You have to be in the top 50 with endorsements to do better than that.

"Everybody has some motivation. It's either notoriety, or money, or wanting to win. But you can love the game, you can even be great at the game, and there's still no guarantee."

n n n

Only five minutes before match time, Kai-Chen's opponent arrived at the court. She got a two-minute warm-up.

Anya Coy is 23. She's Russian. Her early story isn't that different from Kai-Chen's. "When she was 16, she was really good," said her mother, Natasha Nefedov. The Nefedovs moved from Russia to Florida in 1995 so she could train at Nick Bollettieri's academy in Bradenton. Three years ago, she had played her way into an exclusive group: the top 300 women players in the world.

Then, in terms of professional tennis, something cataclysmic happened.

"She got married," said her mother.

She fell out of tournament tennis. She began coaching alongside her father, Evgeny, who opened a tennis academy in Palm Harbor. She helped her little sister Anastasia learn the game. Evgeny says Anastasia is now one of the best 7-year-old tennis players in Florida.

Anya hadn't played in a professional tournament in three years. Then two weeks ago, she told her husband, Aaron, she was going for the wild card at McMullen.

"It's so hard to leave something you lived night and day," Anya said.

In her first match, last Monday, "she remembered how to play tennis," said Anya's mother.

In round two she hit the wall.

The match took less than an hour. Johnnie Brown parked himself in a corner of the stands to indulge one of Kai-Chen's two quirks. She likes to look straight into Brown's eyes between points, for reassurance, and she likes to slap herself hard on the thigh, to wake herself up.

At this level, players have no referee. They made their own line calls without argument. They chased their own loose balls. Only about four retirees were there in the stands to watch these two world-class athletes go at it, one coming, one going.

Anya, at 5 feet 10, is an imposing server with the skills of someone who has played since she could walk. But her speed and stamina had gone somewhere else in those lost three years. Kai-Chen's cruise missiles left her gasping.

She went down 6-1, 6-1.

The two shook hands after the match. Kai-Chen looked utterly unsurprised.

On the next court, Chen Yi was just finishing up. She won 6-0, 6-0.

Both had made the final four of the wild card. They will continue on in this week's tournament.

n n n

The two girls left McMullen for about 30 minutes to grab a pizza. Then they were back on the same court, ready for another two hours of practice. Once again, they had the place to themselves.

"This is just another classroom," said Brown. "They have the skills, but they still have to figure out how to play, how to structure their game." Yi, of course, has power to burn. Kai-Chen has that rare thing that has made Agassi great: "an ability to see the ball early."

The Open has a $25,000 prize purse, but Brown is counting more on learning than money.

Should they ever get famous, the girls will be prepared. They have already figured out how to answer personal questions.

Each time they're asked something, they give each other a look, they debate back and forth for about 30 seconds in Chinese, they explode in laughter, then they answer in two words in English.

"Do you miss home?"

"No."

"Do you want marriage and children?"

"No."

"Do you miss parties and dates?"

"No."

Then a hesitation. An explosion of Chinese.

Kai-Chen says, "Only shopping."

"Okay, what do you want? Do you want to be famous? Do you want to be rich? Do you want to win?"

This time, no hesitation.

Kai-Chen has seen this ball early. She fires back an answer like one of her baseline missiles:

"Everything."

n n n

Epilogue: The next day, Kai-Chen and Yi beat their remaining two wild-card opponents in lopsided matches. That set up a final wild-card match between the friends. But Kai-Chen had to forfeit to Yi in order to take care of visa matters in Miami. Yi won an automatic pass into the Open's Main Draw, and Kai-Chen will play in the qualifying rounds, beginning today.

John Barry can be reached at (727) 892-2258 or jbarry@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 26, 2006, 05:58:41]