Mr. Huang on the badminton court<\/a> and\u00a0worried briefly: what did I have to offer? I was weak and\u00a0essentially a beginner.<\/p>\nI walked to my side of the\u00a0baseline on a cloud. He sounded genuine and those few words put me at ease. We rallied for a while then he suggested a set.\u00a0I was barely 3 at the time, mind you. At his level, he had the ability to make the game and he more than generously did. The fact that a great player was willing to play with me, motivated me to no end. I played my heart out as much as not to disappoint him, and\u00a0as to prove to him that I was willing to learn and to play.\u00a0He could swat me like a fly just\u00a0like Mr. Haung. Instead, he managed to keep the rallies long enough for both of us to enjoy. On the\u00a0few points\u00a0that I did\u00a0mamage brilliantly he would tacitly relent.<\/p>\n
This match illustrated perfectly what a great player, or country in that matter could elevate and motivate\u00a0a new comer.<\/p>\n
China’s surge does not have to build on\u00a0other’s decline. Just ask Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Serena: do\u00a0they welcome the challenge or prefer to sit at the\u00a0top alone? China’s surge will only\u00a0push\u00a0America to become\u00a0better.<\/p>\n
USA, please do not squander your lead, the world needs a good cop.<\/p>\n
China, jiayou, you are almost there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Charles’ built was\u00a0like the linebacker Lawrence Taylor. I have seen\u00a0him around the park from time to time, not because his presence\u00a0and his resemblance to my favorite Giants but\u00a0his agile movement on the court and text book swings. He was a great player, a solid 4.0. One day I was hitting with two guys I found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tennis-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}