Up and coming 20-year-old Sun Shengnan added, "The training model of intensive professional competitions is essential to my growth." The government sports authorities send her to almost every junior tournament of the International Tennis Federation. In February 2004, she paired with Zhan Yongran and won the Australian Open Junior Championships after crushing the top seed in the final.

In the second half of 2002, the Tennis Administrative Center under General Administration of Sport launched another policy to upgrade China's tennis training methods. The tennis administrative center started to match one player with only one coach. In the past, in China's national tennis team, one coach tutored several athletes at the same time, which inhibited the implementation of tailored training.

"China's tennis team must explore the best combination point between the state-supported sports system and international professional tennis trends and absorb the advantages of both systems," said Sun Jinfang, Director of the Tennis Administra-tive Center. She explained that her center has tried to explore new models of training tennis talents. Besides the traditional three-tier system that is mainly financed by the government, the center also encourages individuals to train and compete on their prize incomes and to sign sponsorship deals with companies that can shoulder at least part of their training expenses.

Jiang Hongwei, head coach of the Chinese women's tennis team said, "The Chinese team will be approaching the world leading level if it can stick to the path of professional tennis." However, what worries him is that the unfinished shift in focus has left many unresolved problems.

According to Alan Ma, former coach of Peng, foreign professional players put everything at stake which spurs their desire to win on the court, while many Chinese players are less hungry for victory.

"In China, the government's generous investment has greatly improved the training facilities of local teams, which has made many athletes contented with the current situation since everything comes to them too easily," he said.

Tactics for 2008 Olympics

On the court of the Australian Open 2007, the new pairing of Sun Tiantian and Sun Shengnan advanced into the last eight before losing to Chinese doubles partnership Zheng Jie and Yan Zi. Despite their success, the promising new pair was split up at the Pan Pacific Open Tennis Tournament 2007, where Sun Tiantian was matched with Li Na, a move that reflects strategic changes to China's tennis team.

"To prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, our best option would be having two pairs or even three pairs of women doubles to guarantee the gold," said Xie Miqing, Vice Director of the Tennis Administrative Center. "The advice to each player before a match used to be 'play your game,' but now we add, 'keep a clear and cool mind about your ranking and state,'" he noted.

The Women's Tennis Association rankings are updated every two weeks and only the top 60 seed players in the world gain direct entry onto the Olympic tennis courts. Other players have to go through preliminary competitions.

"Since we have our eyes on the Olympics we will try all out to encourage players to play in professional games to maintain their ranking," said Xie.