Zhang Zhizhen is a Chinese professional tennis player who was born on October 16, 1996, in Shanghai, China. Born into a sporting family, with his father a professional footballer in the Chinese A-League and his mother being a valued member of the Shanghai shooting team, he was destined for a career in sports.
After a successful junior career, Zhang was ready to try out his luck on the main tour. 2015 was his first chance to get his name out there amongst the world’s best, with his ATP main draw debut coming at the 2015 Shenzen Open in his home country.
Winning his first-round appearance against Go Soeda, he eventually got knocked out in the following round by Jiri Vesely. This set him nicely to continue the work that had got him up to that point, with the hope of becoming a mainstay on the ATP Tour.
By 2019, Zhang had become an automatic qualifier into the tournaments he played, but appearances were still scarce. 2021 was the season he made his Grand Slam debut, with the Chinese player coming through the qualifying tournament for Wimbledon, ready to set up a first-round match-up with Antoine Hoang of France. He put up a great fight, losing in five tight sets.
Following a promising 2022, Zhang’s 2023 was when things really picked up. The man from Shanghai started regularly appearing in the main draw of ATP events, which, as is normal, helped his ranking improve.
A quarterfinal appearance at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Madrid thrust him even further up the rankings, helping him onto career-best performances at that season’s French Open and US Open.
2024 saw him reach new heights, with him getting to the semifinal of the doubles tournament at the Australian Open before a Top 50 breakthrough in singles. His search for a first ATP title remains his number one goal, but with progress like we have seen in the last couple of years, it appears to be only a matter of time.
