At around 3 o’clock in the morning on June 28 this year, some 600,000 television viewers in Taiwan were still awake and watching a tennis match between world No. 82 Rendy Yen-hsun Lu from Taiwan and world No. 5 Andy Roddick from the United States. The tense round of 16 match at Wimbledon had gone to five sets, ensuring that there would be a lot of sleepy people showing up for work in Taiwan later that day.
“Fifth set, I don’t believe I can win, because he’s [a] better server than me,” Lu said of the win in an interview after the match. “But I just tell myself, ‘Even [if] I don’t believe, I have to fight.’”
In the 16th game of the fifth set, Lu finally hit a superb passing shot on his first match point to wrap up a memorable triumph. Roddick, a former world No. 1, was stunned by Lu, who was unseeded going into the tournament. By winning the match 4-6, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 9-7, Lu became Asia’s first Grand Slam quarterfinalist since 1995, when Japan’s Shuzo Matsuoka reached the last eight at Wimbledon before losing to American Pete Sampras.
Lu’s magical Wimbledon ride ended after a quarterfinal loss to No. 3 seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia. Nevertheless, after his 4.5-hour victory over Roddick, Lu jumped 40 spots to No. 42 in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings, making him the highest-ranking Asian tennis professional at the time. While as of the end of July this year Lu had slipped a few spots to No. 44 in the world and No. 2 in Asia behind Andrey Golubev (No. 37) of Kazakhstan, he has risen to newfound prominence in the tennis world as well as in Taiwan.
Lu dedicated his Wimbledon victory to his father Lu Hui-yuan, who passed away in 2000. “In that moment of victory I sat and told myself I had done it for my father, for myself and for all the people who have supported me,” he said after the tournament.
Rendy Lu grew up in Taipei County and began playing tennis as a first-grader on his elementary school team. During his days as a junior player, he was consistently ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 in Taiwan, says older brother Lu Wei-ru, who serves as Rendy Lu’s manager and agent in Taiwan. The young player’s parents, however, did not seriously consider letting him pursue an international competition career until 1997, when he won the International Tennis Federation (ITF) 14 & Under Asian Championship in Thailand at the age of 14.
Entrance Plan
“My father’s idea was that his competition results might help him secure a place at a high school without having to take any tests, since I’d had a tough time preparing for the Senior High School Joint Entrance Exam,” recalls Lu Wei-ru. Their father’s plan paid off when Rendy Lu’s play qualified him to enter one of the most prestigious schools in Taiwan, Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, at the age of 16. Because he had frequently been selected for the national team for international matches, he gained admission to the school without having to take any entrance examinations.
During his third year of high school, Rendy Lu entered the top 10 in the ITF junior rankings. “That’s when my father started thinking my brother could try to become a tennis professional,” says Lu Wei-ru. Bringing up a promising tennis player, however, was not easy for Rendy Lu’s father, who worked as a chicken wholesaler in the morning, then spent most of the rest of his day coaching and practicing with his youngest son. The elder Lu also searched for coaches for his son and accompanied him when he played tournaments in Taiwan. Rendy Lu has said that the strain of supporting a family while also developing his tennis career was likely a contributing factor to his father’s fatal heart attack in 2000.
Rendy Lu was only 17 years old when his father died. “He was so upset that he considered giving up his tennis career,” his brother recalls. “But since he’d promised my father he’d become a professional player someday, he decided to continue fighting.”
Rendy Lu, center, appears with athletic trainer Ye En, second left, mother Hsu Su-fen, second right, and brother Lu Wei-ru, right, at a media conference in July this year. (Photo by Central News Agency)
Shaken but determined, Rendy Lu began competing in a series of matches in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, but failed to notch a victory. He finally earned his first pro points in July 2001, when he won his first-round match at the Turkey Futures tournament, an ITF event.
Rendy Lu’s pro career began to take off when his match results improved in 2002, causing his year-end ATP singles ranking to rocket from No. 598 in 2001 to No. 194. A further boost came in 2003, when German coach Dirk Hordorff, who has coached former world No. 5 Rainer Schuettler of Germany since 1992, volunteered to serve as Rendy Lu’s coach for half his normal fee. When asked why he agreed to take an initial pay cut to serve as the young Taiwanese player’s coach, Hordorff says “Rendy is a great person, a great talent and has a very professional attitude in his sport and outside the court.”
Under Hordorff’s supervision, Rendy Lu has shown steady improvement. “Rendy has a lot of advantages—his speed, his coordination, his fighting spirit and his ability to be dangerous in each situation of the match,” Hordorff says.
The German coach has seen his pupil’s technique improve, especially in his forehand, serve and volley game. “The main point is that he believes more and more in himself and has a better understanding of the professional circuit and has learned how to use his abilities and his talent in the best way,” Hordorff says.
Brother Lu Wei-ru also praises Rendy Lu’s professionalism, saying that between matches and during the off-season, his brother formerly practiced tennis for four hours in the morning, then ran or lifted weights for another four hours in the afternoon every day. “People asked him ‘Why do you still practice tennis during your breaks when there aren’t any coaches supervising you?’” Lu Wei-ru says. “And he answered ‘Because this is my profession.’” Now, with the benefit of more consistent coaching and training, Rendy Lu is able to follow a less grueling regime that even allows him to take occasional time off, having learned that part of being a professional means knowing when to give his body a rest.
In 2004, Rendy Lu became the first Taiwanese tennis player to enter the top 100 in the ATP rankings (the ATP governs men’s tennis; a number of female Taiwanese players have cracked the Women’s Tennis Association top 100). He also represented Taiwan at the Olympics in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008. One of his career highlights came at the Beijing games, when he defeated former world No. 6 Andy Murray of Britain in the first round of the men’s singles.
Successful Strategy
Lu Wei-ru credits Hordorff with devising the successful competition strategy that led to his brother’s Wimbledon victory over Roddick. That strategy began with Rendy Lu’s preparation for the French Open held at the end of May this year. As tennis players tend to be either clay court or hard court specialists and often have poor results on the opposite surface, Hordorff believed it would be counterproductive for the young Taiwanese player to change his training focus to account for the clay courts of the French Open, which are slower than hard courts. Instead, Hordorff suggested a series of tough workouts with Argentine fitness trainer Bernardo Carberol. As a result, Rendy Lu’s fitness level peaked. “That’s why his performance at Wimbledon was very stable and he didn’t lose his concentration in any match through the tournament,” his brother observes.
Lu Wei-ru explains that Rendy Lu used to participate in smaller tournaments as well as each of the four Grand Slam events—the US Open, Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon. Now, however, the younger brother is focused only on bigger tournaments. “We’ve chosen to focus on major tournaments because they yield more points in the rankings,” Lu Wei-ru says. “Cutting down on the smaller tournaments also means that he’s in better mental and physical shape when he plays in the bigger ones.”
Along with Hordorff’s coaching and fitness trainers, athletic trainers have also played a vital role in Rendy Lu’s performance in recent years. In 2007, for example, the young player suffered a slipped disc in his back. Doctors in Taiwan said that he required an operation, and some of them even suggested that the injury could put an end to his tennis career. Hordorff, however, introduced him to Klaus Eder, a sports physiotherapist who operates a clinic at a rehabilitation center in Munich, Germany. Eder, who also serves as head athletic trainer of Germany’s national soccer team, spent an hour carefully massaging Rendy Lu’s back muscles. After the initial massage, the young player said his back had not felt so relaxed for the previous 15 months. Rendy Lu made a total recovery from the injury after being treated and rehabilitated by Eder and other specialists at the center for two weeks.
Lu, left, and long-term financial benefactor Lee Yuan-tseh, former president of Academia Sinica, exchange a high five after playing a match in Taiwan in July this year. (Photo by Central News Agency)
Taiwanese athletic trainer Ye En is another member of Rendy Lu’s support staff. Ye was an athletic trainer for Taiwan’s national baseball team during the 2004 and 2008 Olympics and now accompanies Rendy Lu to every match he plays.
This kind of support system, a necessity for professionals playing at the highest level of international tennis, does not come cheaply, however. The weekly salary of a coach, for example, is around US$1,500, and players also have to pay for a coach’s travel expenses and room and board at tournaments. “When you include the players’ own living expenses, it costs at least NT$100,000 [US$3,125] to play in a two-week tournament in Asia,” says Jeff Hsu, chief executive officer of Integration Sports, a national tennis player agency and an organizer of tennis matches. Lu Wei-ru says that his brother’s coaching, athletic training and competition expenses reach NT$5 million (US$156, 250) annually.
While his Wimbledon success has changed his financial situation to some degree, in the past Rendy Lu struggled to find sponsors to cover his expenses. As a result, he was forced to look for ways to cut costs, such as by sharing a coach with other players. Before he met Hordorff in 2003, the young Taiwanese player hired different coaches under short-term contracts and sometimes even competed without a coach. Even today, Rendy Lu employs Hordorff and Carberol only when he is preparing for major tournaments.
Taiwan’s international professional athletes typically fund their efforts with prize money from competitions as well as sponsorship from corporations, individual donors and the government. Rendy Lu’s main corporate sponsors are local companies Chinese Petroleum Corp. (CPC) and Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd. (CHT). CPC has provided NT$1 million (US$31,250) in sponsorship each year since 2002, while CHT has contributed NT$2 million (US$62,500) annually since 2008. Meanwhile, the Germany-based adidas Group has sponsored him for apparel and shoes, while the Head division of HTM Sport GmbH, also based in Germany, has provided Head tennis rackets. Adidas and Head also pay annual bonuses according to Lu’s year-end ranking.
Hsu points out, however, that corporate support for tennis players is more “mature” in other countries such as Japan. Former Japanese No. 1 tennis player Kei Nishikori, for example, was able to ride out a knee injury through the sponsorship of Sony Corp., which, as part of a three-year sponsorship agreement, paid for all of Nishikori’s surgical and rehabilitation expenses, as well as continued to provide US$1 million per year in financial sponsorship.
The Japan Tennis Association also works with corporations to organize annual regional and nationwide tournaments. Corporate money results in relatively large purses for these tournaments, and Japanese amateur players are able to compete against different corporate-sponsored clubs all year ’round. “The prize money for each of the events is at least NT$200,000 (US$6,250), and amateur players in Japan can undoubtedly earn a living by playing in national matches,” Hsu says. In Taiwan, however, the Chinese Taipei Tennis Association (CTTA)—Taiwan’s national governing body for tennis—lacks such corporate backing, with the result that purses are much smaller. At a media conference in Taiwan in early July this year, Rendy Lu addressed the issue of corporate backing, calling on the CTTA to do more to help athletes land sponsorships from Taiwan’s enterprises.
To help Lu meet competition expenses, Integration Sports’ Jeff Hsu and Taiwanese supporters living in the United States organized two fund-raising parties for individual donors in 2003, bringing in some US$60,000. “When Lu received the money,” Hsu says, “he broke down in tears, saying ‘I felt the warmth of my homeland.’”
Along with the help from overseas compatriots, Lee Yuan-tseh, Nobel chemistry laureate and former president of Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, has also provided financial backing for Lu for decades. “Roughly 95 percent of the funds Rendy has received have some kind of link to [former] president Lee,” Lu Wei-ru says gratefully, explaining that the CPC and CHT sponsorships both came about through Lee’s assistance.
Hsu also recalls that in 2008, Lee held a dinner with businesspeople to appeal for funding to help elite Taiwanese tennis players such as Rendy Lu, stressing how badly they needed corporate sponsorship in order to compete in international matches. “Those owners were unwilling to make any moves at first,” Hsu says, “but after Lee’s wife donated NT$500,000 (US$15,625), they stepped up.”
Fans from Taiwan wave the national flag and cheer Lu on during a match at the Australian Open in January 2009. (Photo Courtesy of Lu Wei-ru)
Government support for Taiwan’s professional athletes comes from the Cabinet-level Sports Affairs Council (SAC), which subsidizes individual athletes, gives cash awards for outstanding performances and provides financial backing for national sports associations. The SAC’s Challenge 2008 Gold Plan, for example, was a subsidy program for individual athletes that targeted winning medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It allocated NT$870 million (US$27.2 million) for the training expenses of around 25 elite athletes who participated in 14 sports in the recent summer games. Rendy Lu received a total of NT$4.3 million (US$134,375) under the plan between 2006 and 2008.
Like Challenge 2008, most of the SAC’s subsidies target athletes evaluated as having a good chance to place highly in major competitions. One problem with this approach, however, is that it does little to help developing athletes who may become future stars. Prior to becoming a professional in 2001, for example, Rendy Lu and his family bore all his tennis-related expenses. Hsu says that many other budding athletes face a similar situation today. “If the [government support] environment doesn’t change, many of these players will never have a chance to prove how good they really are,” he says.
Members of national teams representing Taiwan who win a medal in international competitions such as the World University Games, East Asian Games, Asian Games and the Olympics are also eligible to receive prize money from the SAC. For the Beijing Olympics, for example, the SAC paid out NT$92.9 million (US$2.9 million) to successful Taiwanese athletes. Rendy Lu missed out on a share of that purse in Beijing, but he did receive prize money from the SAC for winning the gold medal for mixed doubles with women’s star Janet Lee at the Asian Games in 2002.
Apart from providing subsidies and prize money, however, there are other ways in which the government could do more to improve financial support for athletes. One way would be to give tax credits to corporations that sponsor national players, Hsu says. “It’s like a relay race,” he says. “The government should run the first leg, then pass the responsibility to enterprises for the next legs.” Lu Wei-ru says another way would be for the SAC to introduce elite athletes to enterprise owners as possible sponsorship recipients.
Ambassador for His Country
Rendy Lu’s coach Hordorff argues that while financial assistance is definitely very important for a young player who wants to become a successful athlete, moral support is also a key factor. “I am surprised at the lack [of] respect and support for successful players like Rendy,” Hordorff says frankly. “Taiwan should be proud to have him as ambassador for his country and CTTA should be aware of this.”
Lu Wei-ru also sees a need for more widespread government “resources and methods that support players.” Rendy Lu was not even provided with a coach when he competed in the 2008 Olympics, his brother says, as Olympic regulations, which are based on a team’s number of qualifying players, dictated that only two coaching slots would be allocated for members of Taiwan’s tennis team. At the Beijing games, the CTTA assigned both coaches to women’s doubles partners Chan Yung-jan and Chuang Chia-jung out of the belief that the pair had the best chance of winning a medal. Another Olympic regulation, however, allows countries that require more coaches to apply for temporary coaching permits prior to the games, but the CTTA was unaware of the rule and missed the application deadline. “It’s surprising that this happened with an Olympic player who represented our country,” Lu Wei-ru says.
At his July media conference in Taiwan, Rendy Lu also called on the CTTA to provide better competition and training facilities for tennis players. Integration Sports’ Hsu agrees, saying that Taiwan needs a world-class tennis facility that meets ATP standards and is suitable for hosting ATP Tour events. Things are looking up in this regard, however, as the Taipei City Government announced in July this year that it was planning to build such a facility in the city’s Neihu District that would be completed in 2014.
Looking toward the future, Rendy Lu has set his sights on becoming a world top-30 player. His chances appear good, as coach Dirk Hordorff is sure that success at Wimbledon will give the young player even more confidence as he pursues that goal. “If you can make it at Wimbledon, at the most prestigious and important tournament of the world,” Hordorff says, “there’s no excuse not to play successfully anywhere else.”
Write to Vicky Huang at powery18@mail.gio.gov.tw