The boy jumped and swung his racket towards the speeding tennis ball. With a "bang", the ball quickly crossed the net and flew to the other side a few meters away. Perhaps due to the continuous force, his palm holding the racket was a little white.
On the afternoon of December 30, 2022, Wang Fa trained with his teammates as usual.
Wang Fa, a member of the Wild Elephant Club, is 14 years old and comes from Manghui Village, Mengdong Town, Cangyuan Wa Autonomous County, Lincang City, Yunnan Province. At the end of August, at the 2022 ASICS Junior Tennis Tour Guangzhou, Wa teenager Wang Fa won the U14 men's singles championship. It is a brand new tournament with only 100 championship points per tournament, ranking low in the sequence of the Chinese junior tennis series.
However, because of a photo, Wang became angry. In the photo, Wang Fa, who is more than 170cm tall, is wearing a blue T-shirt, he is carrying a bamboo back basket with national characteristics, two tennis rackets are placed inside, a hearty smile blooms on his dark face, and a pair of eyes are big and bright.
The bamboo back basket is a common tool for production and life in Yunnan, and the image of a peasant boy playing tennis with a back basket has attracted a lot of attention. This child in a border village in Yunnan has become what people call a "boy with a basket".
In fact, fate began to change in 2016. Because of the inconspicuous green ball, Wang Fa walked out of the big mountain located on the border, saw the boundless sea and vast sky, and became the most enviable child in the village. But for him, it's just beginning.
On December 31, 2022, Wang Fa is playing an intra-team match. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wang Chang
"Basket Boy"
The sky was still dark, and Wang Fa and the team members got up. At the Pengmai Sports Center in Shanghai, a dozen teenagers jogged in circles in winter clothes. After the warm-up, they picked up their rackets and kept waving them into the net.
In late December 2022, the Wild Elephants Club came to the Shanghai venue for tennis training. Many players have just had the new crown, and the antigen turned negative for three or four days, and the head coach Zhang Xiaohong did not assign them too heavy tasks, and let them take the racket to "play with training".
The boys and girls stood in teams in pairs and scattered on the huge training ground. They were about the same height, almost thin, and had simple expressions on their equally dark faces. Sometimes, a few words of Wa native language suddenly came out of their mouths, and the coach on the side did not understand it. They are all ethnic minority players selected by Zhang Xiaohong one by one, and if you don't look carefully, you can't tell who is the "basket boy" Wang Fa.
On December 31, 2022, after the team game, Wang Fa (left) and his teammates gave high fives and then walked to the edge of the training ground. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wang Chang
In fact, Wang Fa's popularity was an "accident".
Until then, he had always had his own tennis bag, and the back basket had never been seen in the training ground of the Wild Elephant Club. On the day of the game, head coach Zhang Xiaohong accompanied Wang Fa to participate in the competition, and the trunk of the car was filled with tea sets and back baskets sent by friends. Wang Fa thought it was "fun", and when he was at home before, he could always see such a bamboo back basket. So Wang Fa put the tennis racket in and carried it to the court.
Wang Fa didn't know that he was filmed. On the day of winning the championship in Guangzhou, he found Zhang Xiaohong as usual to report the news, and in order to reward, Zhang Xiaohong led the team to eat a meal of seafood together, and the next day went to the training base in Langfang, Hebei Province, and returned to the normal training schedule.
It's just that the photo and the title of "the boy with the basket" have entered thousands of households along the network cable.
For a week after the game, Wang Fa and his teammates trained as usual, until the opportunity to use mobile phones once a week arrived, and the children looked at the short video on their mobile phones and exclaimed, "Wang Fa, you are hot!" You're an internet celebrity. "Internet celebrities" have since been targeted, and in the weekly team matches, teammates are all riveted to compete with Wang Fa, and they are proud of winning Wang Fa.
In October 2022, Zhang Xiaohong returned to Yunnan to select new tennis players, and Wang Fa returned to his hometown in Yunnan with him. The villagers have already swiped the news of Wang Fa's award on the short video platform, and local leaders and media have long been waiting in Manghui Village.
Zhang Xiaohong remembers that in order to entertain the guests, Wang Fa's mother killed the only pig in the family and went to the town in advance to buy a lot of vegetables. Fourteen-year-old Wang Fa has learned to work with the media, and by this time he has given several interviews, and this time he returned home, put on the traditional Wa costume, once again carried the basket and tennis ball, and told in fluent Mandarin how he got out of the mountain and became acquainted with tennis.
Children in the mountains
After Wang became angry, the rumors became more.
Zhang Xiaohong remembers reports of his encounter with Wang Fa. In 2014, Zhang Xiaohong climbed a mountain with a child in his village while traveling by car in Diqingzhou, Yunnan. After climbing for more than an hour, he found that his phone was dead, so he asked the child to run home to get the power bank. About twenty minutes later, the child appeared with a power bank. "It takes me more than an hour to walk, and it only takes him 20 minutes to go back and forth, which is great if I come to practice tennis."
In fact, this child is not Wang Fa. But it was true, and it was then that Zhang Xiaohong had the idea of recruiting free students in the mountains to play tennis. Zhang Xiaohong, who is nearly half a hundred years old, decided to devote himself to public welfare, and in 2013, when he drove through Lijiang, he visited Huaping Girls' High School and was shocked by Zhang Guimei's deeds, "Let children in mountainous areas get rid of poverty through sports." In 2014, Zhang Xiaohong set up the Wild Elephant Tennis Club in Kunming, profited by collecting self-funded students, and then invested the money in the cultivation of free students.
Zhang Xiaohong visited villages in the mountains, but the villagers did not know what tennis was. Perhaps seeing that he was tall and wearing a tracksuit, obviously an outsider, some people directly asked Zhang Xiaohong, "Are you here to sell organs?" After encountering several encounters, Zhang Xiaohong received the help of Ding Xiangyang, then deputy director of the Lincang Municipal Bureau of Culture and Sports, and successfully found 10 Wa teenagers in Cangyuan County.
Among them is Wang Fa. It was 2016, and Wang Fa was 8 years old. At that time, he was attending classes at Manghui Primary School, a village-level primary school under the jurisdiction of Mengdong Town, Cangyuan County, when he was suddenly called by the teacher to a tall and strong stranger, this person was Zhang Xiaohong.
According to Zhang Xiaohong's request, Wang Fa carried out activities such as switchback running and throwing balls, he wore sandals, sprinted but ran fast, and did not even breathe. After some testing, several projects were excellent. Zhang Xiaohong simply saw Wang Fa's size, thin, and long Achilles tendon, and decided to accept him.
Many photos of Wang Fa were posted at the entrance of the Wild Elephant Club. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wang Chang
At that time, Wang Fa's family was still a poor household in the village, and the family's house was built under government subsidies. He has never left this mountain, except for the school, the family's six acres of land is where Wang Fa frequented most often. His father went out to work, and Wang Fa was the only male laborer in the family, so when he was fine, he had to follow his mother to plant vegetables and feed pigs.
Cangyuan County, where Wang Fa is located, was once a key county in the country's poverty alleviation and development work. The village is built in the mountains, the sky above is obscured by the mountains, and most of the people in the village depend on farming and raising pigs. The primary school attended by the children in the village is also built on the hill, and the two-storey school building rises from the ground to house the preschool and grades one to four. Reading is their only hope to get out of the mountains, but Wang Fa's grades are not high, and few children in the village can successfully go to high school and university.
Although I haven't seen tennis yet, I don't know what kind of sport it is to play tennis. Wang Fa decided to follow Zhang Xiaohong, because as long as he joined his club, he could leave the mountain and go to Kunming to see the outside world.
On December 31, 2022, Wang Fa is playing an intra-team match. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wang Chang
After being selected
After coming to Kunming, 10 Wa teenagers practiced for a year.
The training ground in Kunming is outdoors, as long as it does not rain, it is a training day. Every morning at 6 a.m. they already go out for morning exercises, and they have to fight until the evening. In the beginning, it was serve and toss, 200 to 300 balls in a basket, and Wang Fa and his partners had to repeat the movement until they played five or six baskets. The 86-meter-long tennis wall angles the ground, drawing circles one after another, and Wang Fa and his partners are asked to hit the wall against the circles.
At the end of the day, the training time is as long as 10 hours, and at least 7,000 swings are required. Soon, a cocoon grew on Wang Fa's palm.
Practice tennis fees, children's shoes always break when practiced. Zhang Xiaohong said that from playing ball at the age of 8 to now, Wang Fa has had to change a new pair of shoes almost every month. The thread of tennis is also always broken, at first the coach changes the line, and then the number of disconnections is increasing, and they teach the skills of changing the line to the children.
A few shipping containers next to the wall are their dormitories. The conditions here are not very good, except for beds and sports equipment, there are almost nothing, and you need to go to the public bathroom outside to wash. There is no air conditioning in the summer, and in order to cool off, the children have to put their bodies against the wall to cool down.
The high-intensity training makes the children feel retreated. Wang Fa was lazy and tired, so he made an excuse that he was going to the toilet. He also thought about leaving here, and one of his friends in the team had asked him to plot to escape. However, before the two of them left, they were known by Coach Zhang, and after they were taught a lesson, they couldn't plan.
On December 31, 2022, Zhang Xiaohong, the head coach of the Wild Elephants Club, guided two players on the sidelines. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wang Chang
At the end of the first year of training, the children's dissatisfaction peaked and they all felt too tired. When they returned home during the Spring Festival holiday, the ten children discussed that they would not go back to training. In the end, Zhang Xiaohong had to return to Cangyuan County and persuaded them to return one by one.
In order to make the children really accept the matter of playing tennis, Zhang Xiaohong tried to make them fall in love with tennis. Every night before going to bed, he would go to tell the children the story of tennis, Li Na, Federer, Nadal and other well-known players one by one, sometimes showing their match videos, he always said, "China will have a second Li Na!" "The children listened fascinated, and slowly began to fall in love with tennis. Wang Fa was particularly interested in Federer, and he sometimes pestered Zhang Xiaohong to have the coach tell Federer's story over and over again. In order to stimulate the children's desire to win and lose, Zhang Xiaohong also decided to hold an intra-team competition once a week, as long as he won, he could get a favorite toy.
However, more than a year later, some people in the team left. Zhang Xiaohong said that there was a child whose family lacked labor, and the family must call him back to work. So the child put down the racket and picked up the feed to feed the pig. Once Zhang Xiaohong returned to Cangyuan County and met this child by chance, he stood next to the pigsty, looking at Zhang Xiaohong without saying a word and crying.
Zhang Xiaohong sometimes uses this to "educate" the children, "If you go back, you can only feed pigs in the village like him." But here, even if you don't become a professional tennis player, you can still become a tennis coach in the future. In the past, it was by virtue of being a tennis coach that Zhang Xiaohong's income doubled. For these free students recruited from the mountains, Zhang Xiaohong thought about their future, "The worst thing is to become a tennis coach." "Such income, at least, will not allow them to continue to struggle in poverty."
"I practiced 327 days in 2019 and 307 days in 2020..." Zhang Xiaohong memorized the length of their training. In training day after day, they have achieved some results. Of the 10 Wa children selected, there are still 7 left, and 6 of them won national championships in various junior competitions. In the 2020 National Junior Tennis Points Ranking Series, 3 of the top 4 total points were from this club.
At the scene of matches and events, Wang Fa met more and more tennis players. Although his favorite player is Federer, in 2020, when he met Li Na from China, the Grand Slam tennis player encouraged him to keep cheering, Wang Fa was so encouraged that he began to practice for himself often during training. It was also that year that 12-year-old Wang Fa won the men's singles championship in the national finals in the junior tennis tour. That year, he finished in the top three in the national points rankings. For this, Zhang Xiaohong also rewarded him with a mobile phone.
He was getting more and more confident. Now, Wang Fa, who is remembered by teammate Bai Sichen, is invincible on that tennis court, always shouting after winning, "Come on!" ", tennis player.
On December 30, 2022, after training, Wang Fa picked up the ball on the sidelines. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wang Chang
A life changed by tennis
Because of playing tennis, Wang Fa's life has changed drastically.
Once upon a time in the village, bathing was not something you had to do every day. When he first went to the club, Wang Fa didn't even know how to take a bath. Zhang Xiaohong calculated that even undressing and taking a bath, he only took a total of 2 minutes. Zhang Xiaohong became their life teacher, and he remembers that when Wang Fa first joined the team, every time he touched his feet, it was smelly. There was no way, he started staring at the children taking a bath.
In the team, cultural classes in the evening also continue as usual. Sometimes, children can learn other hobbies from the teacher in the club, such as playing guzheng and singing. The shy Bai Sichen, under the guidance of coaches and teachers, also learned to take the initiative to greet people.
When he returned to the village again, Wang Fa became the most enviable child in the village.
He has not only been to Kunming, but also to Shanghai, Langfang, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Qingdao... He sat on the plane and saw the vastness of the sky, and also saw the boundless sea by the beach, "Life has become different." Wang Fa told his parents about the new world on the phone, and when he returned to the village, he told the friends who surrounded him. He began to have a dream of becoming a professional tennis player and if he didn't get it, he would become a tennis coach.
These days, Zhang Xiaohong has assigned the children a task to record the most important 1,000 days of their lives and go all out to prepare for the next National Games. He looks forward to Wang Fa and his teammates achieving more achievements and bringing hope to more mountain teenagers. To this end, he also brought back dozens of bamboo back baskets from Yunnan and placed them in the training room in Langfang, Hebei Province, hoping to remind everyone "why we started".
On December 31, 2022, after the team's game, Wang Fa (left) sat on the sidelines and resumed the game with his teammates. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wang Chang
The effect of the "basket boy" continues. More and more people in Cangyuan County know about tennis, and they no longer doubt Zhang Xiaohong, but begin to ask people to send their children to Zhang Xiaohong to see if their children are good seedlings for playing tennis.
Back in Cangyuan County in October, Zhang Xiaohong had to recruit new students in village and town primary schools. This time, he had more options. Running, explosiveness, throwing and catching are all part of the assessment. Since Wang was angry, the local area attached great importance to it. The selected children took off their shoes and socks and Zhang Xiaohong checked them one by one, the length of their calves, the length of their Achilles tendons, the proportions of their bodies, and so on. The 20 trainees who were finally recruited one after another have left the mountain and started training in the club, "The physical condition of their batch is much better than that of the ten people in Wang Fa's group." ”
Wang Fa brought tennis back to the mountain, he held the ball to play with his friends, and also used the ball to tease his brother. 6-year-old Wang Yi was playing and also became interested in tennis. Wang Fa brought his younger brother to Zhang Xiaohong, who originally wanted to reduce the burden on Wang Fa's family, so he took Wang Yi away. Unexpectedly, on the first day of training, Wang Yi would be able to hit the ball through the net, which surprised Zhang Xiaohong.
Now, Wang Fa and Wang Yi's life is to practice playing tennis. No matter which city the training ground they practice playing tennis in, they will be arranged to live together. Wang Fa trained harder, hoping to set a good example for his younger brother. These days, Wang Fa also began to think about his future. If the road to tennis goes well, he hopes to become a professional player and win more championships. If you really can't play well, then become a tennis coach.
On December 31, 2022, when Wang Fa was playing in the team, his younger brother Wang Yi was watching and playing sports on the sidelines. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wang Chang
At the end of December, the two followed Zhang Xiaohong and lived in the training venue of Shanghai Pengmai Sports Center. The dormitory is right next to the training ground, and the bed is made of sofas and chairs. It may seem a little shabby, but in their opinion, this kind of life is much better than when they were at home. They also retained the habit of thrift, and when they won the game, Wang Fa was rewarded with items such as sneakers, which he treasured one by one, hoping to wait until the shoes on his feet were worn out and then took them out.
The last day of 2022 was another intra-team competition. Perhaps because he found that his teammates wanted to win himself, Wang Fa had some more pressure, he tightened his attention, stared at the ball and opponent, and his eyes were not attracted by anyone next to him.
Through the glass, Wang Yi and the younger players watched the training ground together. He sometimes did push-ups with rollers and sometimes stared motionlessly in his brother's direction. Wang Yi didn't know that his brother was on fire, he only knew that his brother was very good at tennis. Asked why he also came to play tennis, he replied without thinking, "Because I like it!" Because tennis can change lives! ”
Beijing News reporter Wang Chang Editor Chen Xiaoshu Proofreader丨 Fu Chunshu