China's Top Player, Zhang Zhizhen on life during Coronavirus pandemic: "The situation has improved a lot in the past month"

Zhang Zhizhen has been steadily climbing towards the top 100 in the world but that momentum was halted when the world went into lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Being from the country where it originated, Zhizhen was one of the first to have to lockdown after movement restrictions were implemented; but of course now those in the country are the first to be able to leave their houses and sort of restart normal life.

He spoke about this and said about what he is currently up to during his time away from the court; also his ambitions for when this is over.

“I went to the zoo, but you have to book ahead; because they’re controlling the number of people [who enter],” Zhang told ATPTour.com.

“The situation has improved a lot in the past month; but people are still wearing a mask when they go outside. When you go out to a restaurant or somewhere like this, you have to show a [digital QR] code that shows you’re healthy; then they check your temperature.

“Right now, it’s pretty safe. We can practise all day because it’s only the other players from the federation here. We can run some laps around the club as well. We don’t know when the Tour can restart; so we try to keep it interesting and vary the training, play points and not just drill at the baseline all day.”

“Nobody has reached the Top 100 among the men in China; but to me, the Top 100 is just the start in professional tennis,” Zhang added.

“I don’t want to jump up the rankings too quickly because in the past five years I’ve had huge jumps, then huge drops and huge jumps again. I’m just trying to enjoy playing tennis at the moment. If I can win, then that’s perfect; but I’m not scared of losing either.”

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