Jimmy Arias first met Shang Juncheng when the Chinese player was competing in the 12-and-under clay-court national championships in Orlando, Florida. Arias, the former No. 5 in the PIF ATP Rankings who is now Director of Player Development at IMG Academy, was commentating on the match, which ‘Jerry’ won.
“Jerry killed the guy, like one and two, and I had to interview him after the match,” Arias told ATPTour.com. “At that age, he was actually a bit bigger, stronger than the kid he was playing against. What has always stood out to me with Jerry is he is very Marcelo Rios-like in the control of the ball that he has.”
That is high praise from someone who has been around the best players in the sport for decades. Rios is one of only 29 players who has reached World No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings.
One year later, Shang moved to the IMG Academy and has been on the rise ever since. The third-placed player in the PIF ATP Live Race To Jeddah will face 2022 finalist Casper Ruud in the third round of the US Open on Friday to reach the second week of a major for the first time.
This week last year, Shang was World No. 178. But his team, led by coach Martin Alund, fully believed he would soar in 2024. Arias recalled a conversation he had with Alund ahead of the season.
“I was talking to Martin early in the year and I said, ‘What do you think? Has he worked harder? Where do you think he is going to get to this year?’” Arias recalled. “He pretty much told me — I can’t remember the breakdown, but Top 100 at a certain point, Top 70 by now I think and Top 50 by the end of the year. That was his assessment and so far he’s hit both of the benchmarks that Martin said.”
Shang is at a career-high No. 72 and continuing to climb. It has been an impressive journey for the 5’11” lefty, who still believes he is growing. Arias, a five-time ATP Tour titlist, hit with Shang a few times when he was younger.
“He would swing and hit a rally ball and then with a similar-looking swing, suddenly the ball just takes off and goes with a lot more pace and you’re not sure why that happened when you’re playing against him,” Arias said. “You don’t see it. That’s a talent he has and as he got older, I got more and more impressed because obviously when you are 13, 14, you’re maybe not that fast yet.”
Former World No. 84 Alund remembers visiting the IMG Academy in Florida to meet everyone before beginning his role as head of pros at the academy. He noticed a 15-year-old Shang.
“I saw Jerry playing. I said, ‘Holy crap, that kid is good’,” Alund said. “I remember him being very tiny. Same as now, kind of like the quality, very good hands, very good feel, but he was very tiny, absorbing the pace so good, practising with some pros. Being able to sustain their pace is something you don’t find very often for someone so young.” According to Alund, those are “very rare”qualities to find in players. He explained that it has helped having parents who were athletes. Shang’s father, Yi, was a professional football player. His mother, Na, was a world champion table tennis player.
“First, to find someone with his qualities, with his talent. And I think even more rare having the environment he had, that he’s been having since he was born because his family has been doing a great job on that,” Alund said. “Sometimes you have kids that play good, but their family take it [too seriously] from a young age and then the kid cannot develop that much. Then, with the ability that Jerry has of always improving. So it’s a mix of things that makes him very unique.”
The first tournament for which Alund traveled with Shang was the 2022 BNP Paribas Open, just after Jerry’s 17th birthday. They were connecting through Denver.
“We missed the connection and we had to sleep on the floor because the next flight was at like 5 a.m. and at that point it was already like 12. The hotel that they gave us was like one hour away,” Alund said. “So I said, ‘Okay, let’s stay here’. And I was thinking, ‘Geez, this kid for me is going to be super good. He’s very young. Going to play Indian Wells for the first time in his life and he’s sleeping on the couch in the airport’.”
At the time, Shang had not yet cracked the world’s Top 500. Ever since he has made steady progress in his game.
“As he got older, his movement and his balance while he’s moving stood out to me,” Arias said. “The best players in the world are the ones that even if you’re hitting the ball 100 miles per hour in the corner, you can not just get to it but get to it with their body not leaning or falling over.”
[ATP APP]A lot has changed for Shang in the past year. In the final round of 2023 US Open qualifying, the Chinese teen won just one game in the final set against Otto Virtanen. “I ran out of gas pretty bad,” he admitted.
This edition, Shang won a five-setter in the first round against Alexander Bublik and followed the victory with a triumph against the gritty Roberto Carballes Baena. It is just the latest example of the improvement he has made in 2024.
Shang’s standout results include semi-final showings in Hong Kong and Atlanta and a trip to the third round of the Australian Open.
“He took off the last couple months of last year. And I said to him, ‘Okay, you have two months. What do you need to work on? When you lose matches, what is it that’s causing you to lose matches? You have two months, let’s do something about it’,” Arias said. “He said, ‘It’s never been tennis that causes me to lose matches. It’s physical’. So I said, ‘Well okay, let’s work really hard to become bigger, stronger, faster’.”
That work has paid off and now Shang is No. 66 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings. Just how much is Jerry capable of?
“Sometimes I believe there are some things that you don’t have to say,” Alund said. “I believe he has good potential and I know he hasn’t achieved his full potential. He has many more things to give to tennis, to people, himself, his family who have been with him since day one. He has a lot to give.”
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