Michael Chang - Holding Serve: Persevering On and Off the Court

HOLDING SERVE

PERSEVERING ON and OFF the COURT

MICHAEL CHANG

with MIKE YORKEY

Copyright 2002 by Michael Chang with Mike Yorkey

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations for critical reviews and articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

All Scriptures used are from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chang, Michael, 1972

Holding serve / Michael Chang.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-7852-6656-9 (hc.)

1. Chang, Michael, 1972- 2. Tennis playersUnited StatesBiography. 3. Christian biographyUnited States. I. Title.

GV994.C47 C42 2002

796.342'092dc21

[B]

2001056225

Printed in the United States of America

02 03 04 05 06 BVG 5 4 3 2 1

To my father and mother, Joe and Betty Chang

Without you, none of this would have been possible.

Thank you for your unconditional love and support.

This book is a long time coming.

I think it is because the first time someone asked me whether I would write a book, thirty minutes had passed since I won the French Open in 1989.

I exaggerate, of course, but the fame of becoming the youngest male to win a Grand Slam tournament caused many in the mediaand tennis fans around the worldto wonder if a book by me would be forthcoming. Since winning the French Open, I have received numerous offers from book publishing companies asking me to tell my story. I turned them all down. I never thought the time was right until now, which calls for an explanation.

An autobiography is supposed to sum up the thoughts of someone who has made history or has been in the limelight for some reason. Since I have turned thirty years of age, I have forty-five years waiting in front of me, if God grants me an average life expectancy. It would be ludicrous for me to summarize my life at this time. After all, I have a lot of life left to live.

Nonetheless, I realize that I have only a couple of seasonsif God grants me those yearsremaining in the game. Thus, with the next phase of life just ahead, I feel it is important to record my thoughts and observations before I exit the playground of professional tennis. You can call Holding Serve a midterm reflection.

Besides, a book about me at the age of seventeen would have been pretty boring. Sure, I had a wonderful upbringing, but most of my days from first grade on were spent in school or on a tennis court, hitting a fuzzy yellow ball. The life of a tennis professional is rather one-dimensional: we all stay in the same hotels (generally), wake up, eat breakfast, call the transportation desk for a ride to the tournament site, loosen up in the locker room before warming up for a half hour or so, and then play our matches. Afterward, there are postmatch interviews, people to meet, and trainers to visit. Then it is back to the hotel room for a meal and some restor to the airport, if we failed to win the last point of the match. A jet flight takes off for the next tour stop, or home sweet home for one of our infrequent respites from the tour.

In Holding Serve I will recount my tennis career to this point, making sure I touch on the highlights and lowlights, but I will also tell you more about myself than youve read elsewhere. I have done thousands of interviews over the years, but my questioners often failed to ask me what was really important in life. Besides, no matter what I said, the scribes usually wrote what they wanted to anyway. Some got it right, but more often than not, the pictures they painted of me were incomplete.

You see, I am a Christian. Youve probably heard me thank the Lord in a postmatch interview and give Him the glory. Thats who I am and who I will be long after I step away from the game. In this book, Ill explain what my faith means to me and how I have learned that life is more than cheering crowds or TV interviews or department store appearances or even triumphant victories. I have lived half my life sold-out to Jesus Christ, and I shudder to think how I could have gotten through the past fifteen years without His guidance and love.

God has a plan for my life, just as He has one for you. If you will stick with me on the following pages, you will learn more about that plan and how much I look forward to the next chapter of my life. Thanks for joining me.

FRENCH OPEN, JUNE 1989

If there is one common denominator to the gypsy lives led by tennis players, it is jet lag. I wouldnt go so far as to call jet lag an occupational hazard, but upon return to my home on Mercer Island (a Seattle suburb), I dont force my weary bodyor my restless mindto sleep until the sun comes up. I like to bring my body clock around more naturally, which means that if I awaken at 2 A.M.my mind fully alert and my body somewhat restedI get out of bed.

When that happens, I throw on a sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, and some old tennis shoes and step out onto the balcony of my lakefront home, which overlooks the western shoreline of Mercer Island. To the north, I can see the white glow of headlights from eastbound travelers riding I-90s floating bridge, the six-lane ribbon of concrete that connects Mercer Island to Seattle to the west and Bellevue to the east.

Lake Washington is very still, given the hour. The ink-black water is glassy smooth; beads of lights up and down the coastline shimmer upon the lakes surface. At this timethe dead of night, when the world outside my home is fast asleep but Im notI walk to my dock and step into my nineteen-foot Ranger walleye bass boat with my G. Loomis fishing rod in hand. I motor up to my favorite fishing spota place near the I-90 bridge, about five minutes from home. I cut the engine and drop a line into the water while I drink in the quiet and peacefulness.

I look to the star-filled sky and remember that the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands, as Psalm 19:1 says. Amid the beauty and stillness of the night, I turn reflective. Then I recall an event that turned a boy into a man, all in the span of two weeks in the City of LightParis, France.

I was seventeen years, three months, and seven days old when the French Openthe worlds premier clay court tournament held over a two-week periodbegan welcoming tennis fans from around the world on Monday, May 30, 1989. The Championats International de France is played at a venue called Roland Garros, located in the Bois du Boulogne, a tree-lined park in the western suburbs of Paris. The French constructed the art deco tennis complex in 1928 to host Frances Davis Cup defense against the United States and named it after Roland Garros, a World War I flying ace. During my first French Open in 1988, I learned that the French say Ro-lahnd Garrow, while Americans mistakenly add the s sound.