The Michael Zheng diary, Part 2: "The more you win, the more you’re accepted"

Hi, this is Michael.

I’m writing from a Tucson, Arizona, hotel room early on a Saturday morning. I’m here with the Columbia team for our spring break trip to Arizona. Yesterday, we flew in, practiced, drove for a few hours, and practiced again. But we don’t have another match for a couple of days, and I’m at least close to caught up on my school work. So I’ll take a few moments to tell you what the last few weeks have been like.

Right now, my body may not be sure what side of the country it’s on, or what time zone it’s in. Last week I flew from New York to Indian Wells and played my first-round match there. After that, I flew back in time for a double-header that our team had at home, even though I didn’t end up playing. A couple of days later, we packed up and headed west again for this trip. I guess it isn’t unusual in college sports these days, now that conferences are spread out all over the country, and teams travel from one coast to the other. I don’t love being in an airplane, but there’s not much choice except to get used to it.

I’ll start by saying that Indian Wells was kind of crazy. It was pretty difficult, honestly, adjusting again to the show, especially after how I started the year.

In January I played one of the biggest tournaments in professional tennis, the Australian Open. When I got back, I was like one or two weeks behind in school. So I had to catch up on schoolwork while I was playing team matches and practicing. Then I left to play another big pro tournament, one of the Masters, my first Masters.

But I’m never going to complain about getting a wild card at Indian Wells. Of course it’s better if you can qualify for the main draw, or get in with your ranking, so you feel like you’re earning it. But at the same time, it’s such a good opportunity for me to be exposed to the level of play that I want to reach. I don’t necessarily get that chance often.

My opponent was Vit Kopriva. He’s 28, and outside the Top 50, and not a household name. But in the pros you don’t have to be young or well-known to be a really good player who can push anyone on the right day. I knew going in that he was playing well. He made the semis at the 500 in Rio last month, and he’s at a career high ranking in the 60s now.

He played well against me, no question. He was hitting his backhand really well. I don’t think I played badly. The score was 7-6 (5), 7-5, and it was just a few loose points here and there, especially in the first-set tiebreak, that cost me. It was close to two hours for two sets, and it was very back and forth. He was up in both sets, and I got it back. He had another good match with a seed, Alexander Bublik, after that.

It’s a match you want to win, but the fact that he’s 60 in the world, and it was close, gives me the confidence that the level’s there. I think the way we shook hands at the net, I could see he thought it was a tough match.

👉 The Match in 15, Michael Zheng vs. Vit Kopriva

The vibe for me was a little different at Indian Wells, too. I’m on pretty good terms with Frances Tiafoe and most of the American guys, and I know some younger guys from juniors. But after the Australian Open, more people would say hi when they passed by, and acted like they knew who I am. It makes you start to feel like you’re part of it. It’s pretty simple, I guess: The more you win, the more you’re accepted.

The more you win, the bigger the target gets on your back, too. I can feel that in college matches now. I definitely think a lot of people are circling the match when they play Columbia. A lot of guys will play with nothing to lose and just go for it, and it can be annoying when somebody’s just ripping winners. But I look at it as something I’ve earned. The most important thing is that it will help me develop as a player. It makes college tennis more of a good testing ground for me.

Speaking of going the college route, I was excited to find out that I had won the Hurd Award, which was introduced by the late Mark Hurd of Oracle about 10 years ago. It’s given out each spring by the UTR Foundation and the Hurd family to two college players—a man and a woman—trying to transition to the pros. It’s $100,000 each, which will be very helpful in jumpstarting my career. You obviously don’t get paid for playing college matches, and the NIL money for tennis isn’t life-changing. One positive this year is that I was able to keep my Australian Open prize money, because I won’t need to be college-eligible after 2026.

More than that, the Hurd Award is an honor, and a testament that we were doing the right stuff, staying in school.

That’s where I’ll be for the next couple of months, studying and playing matches for Columbia, as we go for the Ivies again. Then I’ll try my luck in the big show again, on clay, in Europe. Talk to you soon.