SUPPLY AND DEMAND : Michael Chang and Family Set Out to Fulfill America’s Tennis Desires

The latest model of the future of American men’s tennis had just finished his first tournament as a professional player . . . and he felt as if he were finished.

His arms and calves had started cramping near the end of a three-set second-round loss in the U.S. Indoors at Memphis, Tenn., in February. After the match, things got worse. He had cramps in his chest, and soon his entire body became involved in the struggle.

Finally, between spasms, while lying in ice, America’s newest tennis prodigy had a question for the tour’s trainer.

“Am I dying?” asked Michael Chang.

And so began a 15-year-old’s introduction to life as a professional tennis player. Surviving this rocky debut, he turned 16 a week later. Now nearly 16 1/2, he can look back and laugh at those naive days, all those hours ago.

“It was hurting bad,” Chang said recently at Sunny Hills Racquet Club in Fullerton, near his Placentia home. “That was the worst feeling. It was so scary.”

His mother, Betty Chang, who was a frightened witness, nodded.

“Hyperventilating, exhaustion and dehydration,” she said.

Things did get better, however. They were bound to.

After all, Chang had already made history as an amateur.

At 15, he was the youngest player to win the U.S. Tennis Assn. national 18-and-under singles title at Kalamazoo, Mich.

That victory led to a spot in the U.S. Open in September, which brought forth another record, as he became the youngest male player to win a main-draw match. He defeated a player 17 years older than himself, Paul McNamee, in four sets, and afterward, looked like the Pied Piper with the national media trailing him in hot pursuit.

Then Chang reached the semifinals in a tournament at Scottsdale, Ariz., and, before losing, made a nervous wreck of Brad Gilbert, 26. There, Chang became the youngest player to reach the semifinals of a Grand Prix event and probably became the first player to borrow a pair of tennis shoes from a spectator in mid-match after his shoes lost their soles.

Depending on how you look at it, Chang bears the good fortune--or burden--of having to carry this “youngest ever” tag around. You don’t have to look hard to realize that young talents have become no talents in this game faster than you can say “Jimmy Arias.”

However, no less an authority than Pancho Segura has compared Chang to a young Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall. Charlie Pasarell, a former pro and U.S. Davis Cup team member, watched Chang patrol the baseline and pound groundstrokes and said: “I wish I moved as fast as he does. If I did, I probably would have won 10 Wimbledons.”

Others, searching for replacements for the old Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, have already lit the torch and waved it--perhaps shoved it--at Chang and Andre Agassi, the U.S. teen tennis hopes for the ‘90s.

All this, after Chang has spent less than six months on the tour as a professional.

Then again, in those few months, Chang has:

--Raised his computer ranking from No. 163 in the world at the end of 1987 all the way to No. 78 two weeks ago. Which means that Chang is spared the indignity of having to qualify for big tournaments or playing in satellite events, tennis’ version of the Continental Basketball Assn. This week, he is No. 84--well ahead of fellow Americans Tim Wilkison and Arias.

--Become the youngest male to win a main-draw match at Wimbledon in more than 60 years. Chang defeated Glenn Layendecker, 7-5, 1-6, 6-4, 6-2, last month and lost to seventh-seeded Henri Leconte, 2-6, 7-6, 6-2, 6-3, in a second-round match on Centre Court. Joe Chang, Michael’s father, says that the Leconte-Chang match was the hot subject on Fleet Street during Wimbledon’s first week--that is, right behind Barbara Potter changing her shirts at courtside.

--Reached the third round at the French Open before losing to McEnroe, 6-0, 6-3, 6-1. Men’s tour officials aren’t sure whether Chang made all-time history at Roland Garros, citing the poor availability of records, but they believe that Chang is the youngest male player since the Open era began in 1968 to reach the third round at the French.

More perspective on Chang’s precociousness: Last weekend, the USTA held the final of its national hardcourt event at Burlingame, Calif., in the 18-and-under division. In 1987, Chang won the singles championship, which was the first stop on the road to Flushing Meadow and instant fame before he turned professional early this year. Who would have guessed, one year after Burlingame, he’d be earning his living in the very same tournaments as the likes of Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker and McEnroe?

Not Michael Chang.

“I would have laughed,” said Chang, who could have competed in the 18s through 1990 if he hadn’t turned pro.

“Everything has happened so fast. I was looking at some pictures when I was 12 and still playing the 12 hardcourts. I’m such a little kid then, and four years later, I’m playing in the professionals. It’s weird.

“I think I’m going at a good pace. I didn’t jump up too fast.”

A story has been told several times of a longtime British journalist peering at a crowded press section--right behind such people as U.S. Davis Cup captain Tom Gorman, Arthur Ashe and Brian Gottfried--awaiting Chang’s second-round match on an obscure outside court at the U.S. Open.

“Now you’re as desperate as we’ve been,” he said.

The former American champions and the media gathered to check out Chang and his game. Chang showed he could counterpunch with the best of them, hitting a two-handed backhand with sound preparation and taking the ball on the rise off both sides. One obvious weakness was--and still is--his serve. It probably will never be a weapon. Rather, Chang is working on it so the serve won’t be a liability.

Joe Chang says his son’s volley is better from the recent grass-court experience. Again, you won’t be watching Michael Chang serve and volley on every point. The Changs merely want him to approach the net more to create an element of surprise.

So is his game--based on his excellent speed and good groundstrokes--the kind that will make him the champion for whom Americans have become desperate . . . joining our friends across the pond?

Or will he fall the way of those previous phenoms Arias and Aaron Krickstein, 1990s style? There are the platitudes from such people as Segura and Pasarell. From others, there is uncertainty gained from watching the rise and fall of Arias and Krickstein, in part because of injuries and one-dimensional games.

“It’s still very early to say about Michael,” said Gorman, who watched Chang play Leconte at Wimbledon and was impressed with the way he handled the pressure.

“You have to think of his age. There’s going to be difficult times and difficult matches for him. At his age, he’s looking at all aspects of improving his game. I don’t know if he’ll ever develop an overpowering serve. But look at Jimmy (Connors). How many times were there when he didn’t have an ace in a four- or five-set match?”

Leconte, for one, was caught by surprise in the first two sets against Chang, who, without a big serve, wouldn’t have seemed to be a threat on grass.

“He was moving so quickly with such good timing,” Leconte said. “And I’m thinking, ‘Sixteen years old?’ God.”

There’s another element to consider in Chang’s rapid ascent. What the Americans are waiting for--a replacement for aging champions--is something the Asians haven’t experienced yet. A male tennis champion. No matter what he does, Chang already is the most notable Chinese-American tennis player ever.

He realized this interesting set of dual expectations even before he turned pro.

“Now I see a lot of Orientals at my tennis matches because I’m Chinese and stuff,” Chang said last fall.

After Wimbledon, a tournament promoter wanted Chang to play a big-money exhibition event in Japan, knowing that this kid would be a big hit. The Changs said thanks but no thanks to the quick buck.

“They are clamoring to see Michael over there,” Joe Chang said. “But it wasn’t the right time. Michael was exhausted after Wimbledon. We’ll have plenty of time to do those things.”

With his finger, Michael Chang traced a graph on the table as he talked to a reporter. “It’s too hard if you go from this point down here and you go straight up. There’s so many little things you’ve got to learn in here. Already, there’s so many things I’ve learned on the pro tour.”

For one, his mishap at Memphis made Chang realize the importance of diet and conditioning. When the cramps started again in his next event at Indian Wells during a first-round loss, Chang told his father he wasn’t ready to play a best-of-five-set match at the International Players Championships. He skipped the tournament.

This decision, no doubt, was discussed in depth during a family meeting. All questions, major or minor, are dealt with by the Chang troika--father Joe, mother Betty and Michael. Whether to turn pro. What tournaments to play. What interviews to grant.

The Changs’ family ties are more tightly strung than your average racket. Although Michael is an intelligent and articulate teen-ager, he is usually very quiet and often hesitant to approach others. Because of that and his age, Betty Chang travels the professional tour with her son, and both say her presence has helped ease the transition and enhance relationships with the other players.

Said Joe Chang: “I think without my wife, Michael would have a lot of trouble on the tour. My wife is a unique lady. She’ll go out of her way to make friends for Michael. Michael, himself, I don’t think he can do it. He won’t really go out to make the initial contact with people, but Betty will do that.”

There’s a flip side to this special kind of family unity, though. Through the years, after the Changs moved from St. Paul, Minn., to the San Diego area in 1979 before arriving in Orange County last summer, numerous coaches have been shuttled in and out under the heavy scrutiny of the Changs. No one really seemed to be just right for Michael except his father. Segura was willing to take a crack after Chang’s success at the U.S. Open but wanted total control. Neither Michael nor Joe wanted to submit to those conditions.

Segura, in a national tennis magazine, has called it the family’s “bondage.”

Says Betty Chang: “To be a coach, in our mind right now, is to be able to develop Michael in every aspect. At the same time, go inside with the family. Just don’t take Michael away from the family. You’d never be able to do it, because we’re such a tight-knit family.”

Curiously, the USTA, looking to resuscitate the country’s youth movement, hired a former top player, Gottfried, to work with “rookie” pros and asked the Changs to participate in the program. Previously, the relationship between the Changs and the USTA was rather chilly because of disagreements over the direction of the junior program. But the family saw the opportunity and went for it.

Sort of.

Whether Gottfried becomes Michael Chang’s coach, or the kind of coach the Changs want, remains to be seen. For now, Michael plans to work with him at selected tournaments and in the weeks leading up to the U.S. Open.

The family, typically, is taking a wait-and-see attitude.

“It’s hard to say (if it will work) because it’s only been a week together at Wimbledon,” Michael Chang said. “As you get to know a person, things can change. Maybe it’s whether you find out something annoying or something great.”

Michael Chang isn’t completely thrilled to read in all the newspapers that Gottfried is his bona fide coach after just one week.

“I feel kind of bad if somebody is actually going to say they’re my coach, because I think that nobody should have the right to take away the definition of a coach from me and my dad,” he said. “Because my dad has been the one that raised me and spent the full time to develop me. It’s just that I don’t want anything to be taken away from him.”

Joe Chang is protective of his son--and vice versa. Michael was once quoted in World Tennis magazine as saying: “If I said forget it (about tennis), my dad would be incredibly mad. Just looking at the way my parents and my brother (Carl, a member of California’s tennis team) have helped me, you want to give something back by working hard, showing that you care and that your parents didn’t waste $100,000 for you to screw around. This is a family thing.”

But when does so much of a family thing become too much of a good thing? More than a few outsiders have viewed the motives and maneuvers of the Chang clan with a skeptical eye.

“There’s just so much at stake for them,” said one Southland tennis coach. “It really strikes me as though they treat him like a product. Like a commodity.”

That’s something Joe Chang wouldn’t dispute. He sees definite similarities in the vocations of Joe Chang, senior research chemist for the development of new products for an oil company, and Joe Chang, tennis father.

“In my job here, I enjoy it,” he said. “I’m developing all kinds of new products. The way we are handling him is like handling a new product.”

Joe Chang laughs and pauses.

“It is. Because you’ve got to identify Michael’s needs and establish a strategic plan to fulfill Michael’s needs.

“In a way, that’s exactly what we are doing with new products here. You identify the customer’s needs and then you set up a plan to fulfill the customer’s needs.

“Most of the tennis coaches, they don’t do planning. It’s important for somebody behind this project to do the planning part. Because you know exactly where you want to go three months from here, six months from here, and what you want to accomplish.”

Certainly, the Changs couldn’t have planned it any better since the day four years ago when they sat down and laid the groundwork for their 12-year-old’s future career. The concept behind Project Chang is a simple matter of supply and demand.

The customer?

The American public.

And the customer’s needs?

An American tennis champion.

It is, as they would say in Joe Chang’s other line of work, an open market.