For this year's Hong Kong Tennis Classic, Chinese-American star Michael Chang didn't come on his own. He brought along a new wife. In late 2008, the 37-year-old Chang married 25-year-old Amber Lui, a former No1 NCAA tennis player at Stanford University. At Monday's player introduction, the retired Chang told CitySeen how much more love, set and match there is in his game now.
'When you are on tour, you have to be very focused and think of tennis pretty much the whole time,' he said. 'Now, my practices are not as long and the training not as intensive. Playing tennis now is more relaxed, which is nice. And my life is different as my priorities have changed. Certainly being married has been wonderful. To be able to get settled, share our lives together and look towards the future has been really, really exciting.'
Of course, one thing the couple shares is the love of the game. 'Tennis has been such a big part of both of our lives. It is easy to talk about a lot of things that we have to go through because she understands what it is like and we practise together.'
We're curious: when the newlyweds play, who wins? 'Umm, we don't play against each other. We usually play some baseline games and may play a point here and there, but not like a competition,' Chang said. 'Actually, we went practising a bit today.'
Indeed, the couple was spotted hitting some rallies at Victoria Park before the meet-and-greet media session.