On July 22, before the Paris Olympics, the ATP officially updated the latest world rankings, and Chinese star Zhang Zhizhen once again set a new career high, ranking 31st. This ranking is not only a new personal high for Zhang Zhizhen, but also a new high for male players in Chinese mainland, and a new high for all Chinese male players in the three places across the Taiwan Strait. The previous record was held by Chinese Taipei's Lu Yanxun in 33rd place. Zhang Zhizhen is now the well-deserved first Chinese men's tennis player.
Zhang Zhizhen's career has been more than ten years, but it is only in the last few years that he has really transformed. From the end of 2022, Zhang Zhizhen officially achieved a breakthrough and became the first men's top 100 player in the history of Chinese mainland. That year, he had just celebrated his 26th birthday, and no one expected that Zhang Zhizhen's career had officially entered a new milestone.
Chinese mainland's first Masters Top 8 player; the first to beat a player ranked in the top five in the world; the first player to break into the top 50 in the world and tie the highest ranking of Chinese men in history; The first man to win all four Grand Slams...... A series of historical records and honors have been rewritten and created by Zhang Zhizhen. When Zhang won the gold medal in the men's singles final of the Asian Games in Hangzhou last year, he helped Chinese mainland men's tennis achieve the moment to compete in the men's singles event at the Olympic Games again.
With Zhang reaching the quarterfinals at last week's ATP 500 in Hamburg, earning a valuable 100 points and moving to No. 31 in the world rankings, a new moment in history has been born. Zhang Zhizhen became the first Chinese men's tennis player in the true sense of the word, at least at the height of the world rankings, he became the first person without precedent. The previous record was 33rd held by Chinese Taipei's Lu Yanxun. Every small step of Zhang Zhizhen is a big step for Chinese men's tennis, and even Chinese tennis.
Although Zhang has made a breakthrough in the world rankings, there is still room for him to work hard and improve in terms of overall results, after all, he has yet to win a single tour title. In the Grand Slam arena, he has not been able to catch up with Lu Yanxun's quarterfinals. There is still a long time left for Zhang Zhizhen, and the breakthroughs again and again have brought him not only the improvement of self-confidence, but also the motivation for goals and pursuits, and he is looking forward to his new identity to compete in the Paris Olympics and achieve new results for Chinese men's tennis.