A Chat With Chang - Part One
In 2008, Michael Chang made his debut on the ATP Champions Tour. The American burst onto the scene in 1989 when he won the French Open as a 17-year-old. In the first part of an exclusive interview, he talks to ATPChampionsTour.com about retirement, his life with wife Amber Liu, and what it was like to be part of that golden age of American tennis, with Pete Sampras, Jim Courier and Andre Agassi. Next month, in Part Two, he talks about his French Open victory, the effect that the Tiananmen Square massacre had on him and that famous, underarm serve against Ivan Lendl.
Q: First of all Michael, a very warm welcome to the ATP Champions Tour. What is it like to be sharing a locker room with men like Stefan Edberg, Sergi Bruguera and Yevgeny Kafelnikov again?
Michael: Well, it’s different now, obviously. The intensity isn’t quite what it was when we were all playing out on tour, but it’s nice, it’s very relaxed. The guys obviously want to come out and play good tennis but at the same time they want to come out and have fun as well. On the main tour, it’s a lot more intense and everyone’s out there trying to win and prepare well, especially at the major events, and I don’t think you see quite as much camaraderie in the locker room or even around the courts or off site. So it’s a nice change and at the same time it’s nice to be able to come out and play against guys that you’ve played against for so many years and be able to compete with them once again.
Q: Some of the players have described retirement as a relief after years of travelling the world playing tennis, others have talked about the new opportunities retirement has given them, while some have found it difficult - ‘like a black-hole’ was one view. What has retirement been like for you.
Michael: Actually, I had thought that I would do a lot less traveling but I have still done a lot of traveling because I was doing a lot of things with our Chang Family Foundation. I had gone to school, I went to seminary for about a year and a half. And also I was traveling all around the United States and also in Asia doing a lot of speaking engagements. So I would Chair at churches and universities, sometimes at businesses, sometimes at conferences so my schedule was actually pretty packed and pretty full. So the transition for me to go from playing on tour to doing all these other things was actually pretty easy. I was still very, very busy and my personality is not really one to sit around and do nothing; I could maybe do that for about five days just to rest and relax but after that I need to really be productive in what I’m doing and in my life. I think what I’m doing now is really an extension of what I had been doing out there on the Tour, which is going out and trying to touch and impact a lot of lives. Now I’m entering a new stage in my life but I still have the opportunity to go out and play tournament on the Champions Tour. It’s nice to be able to do that.