NEW YORK TENNIS MAGAZINE’S
J U N I O R P L AY E R S P O T L I G H T BY BRIAN COLEMAN
MICHAEL ZHENG owards the end of 2019, Michael Zheng headed north to Wayland, Mass. to compete in the USTA National Indoor Championships, one of the top junior circuit tournaments in the United States. Zheng, a high school sophomore, had entered the event playing good tennis, and felt solid about his game. “I was playing really well heading into the Indoor Championships. I had a decent run in Kalamazoo where I lost to the eventual finalist in three sets. So that gave me a lot of confidence,” recalls Zheng. “And I continued playing well that week. I was just extremely focused, was hitting clean and didn’t commit a lot of unforced errors.” All of that added up to one of the best weeks of Zheng’s junior career where, as the seventh-seed, he won six consecutive matches, including a straight-sets win over the top-seed in the quarterfinals, culminating in a 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 win over Walker Oberg in the championship. “Before each match I would take down notes of my opponent, and I was just really focused on winning that
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event,” he said. “It gave me a lot of confidence afterwards; it showed me that I was at the same level as other nationally-ranked players. I think it also validates the hard work I was putting in going into the tournament, and that I’m doing the right things in my training. It was a great experience.” The victory was the culmination of the dedication to training and work ethic Zheng has had throughout his young career as a tennis player. He began playing tennis when his father took him and his sister over to a local
New York Tennis Magazine • June 2020 • NYTennisMag.com
high school and fed balls to them. Soon after, they would try out and gain entry into the feeder program at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. “I played there for two years, it was a great program. And it really set the foundation for me as a tennis player,” said Zheng. “I had also played basketball and soccer growing up, but tennis took up most of my time, and I was always better at tennis than I was at other sports. I had good eye-hand coordination, and I think that was definitely more beneficial for tennis.” Zheng’s training brought him to Centercourt Performance Tennis Academy a couple of years ago, a facility that is much closer to his New Jersey home, and a place that has helped his game develop over the last two years. “I first moved to Centercourt when my coach, Adrian Contreras, went there and it’s been great. Everyone in the program is really good and it’s very competitive,” said Zheng. “We do a lot of point play, and everyone is trying to move up the ladder to the top court. That aspect, where everyone is aiming to beat the person ahead of them,
