Michael Cheng: A family immigrated from China to the ‘American dream’ | ATP Tour

Player features

Michael Cheng: A family immigrated from China to the “American Dream”

The 21-year-old has won his last three challenge matches

October 14, 2025

Michael Cheng’s rise to become one of the most promising young Americans on the ATP Challenger Tour began with his family’s immigration story.

Before Michael was born, his parents immigrated to the United States from Hubei, China, so that Zheng’s father, Joe, could pursue a PhD in physics. When the tech boom hit, Joe and his wife May turned to IT.

“He decided to go into computing, and so did my mom,” Zheng told ATPTour.com of his parents. “They are coming [to the United States] They are either in their late 20s or early 30s, so now they have been in the United States for 20 to 30 years. I guess it’s like the American dream. “

After arriving in the United States, Joe started playing tennis with friends and immediately fell in love with the sport. This passion later evolved into watching and supporting Michael chasing his “American Dream” on the tennis court. A long-time Roger Federer fan, Joe wanted his son to “play like Roger,” recalled Michael, also a Federer fan, with a smile.

Zheng, 21, is a senior at Columbia University and has already achieved several milestone wins at the collegiate and professional levels. Last year, Zheng won the 2024 NCAA singles title, six months after finishing second at the same event in November. Zheng became the first Ivy League NCAA singles champion since 1922.

The New Jersey native has made a seamless transition to the ATP Challenger Tour, lifting trophies in Chicago, Columbus and Tiburon over the past three tournaments. With his latest victory in Tiburon, Zheng He joins a long list of American players with wins at California hard-court events. Jack Sock, Sam Querrey and Tommy Paul are among the elite players who have won the Tiburon Challenger.

Michael Cheng wins the Tiburon Challenger. ” style=”width:100%;” src=”https://www.atptour.com/-/media/images/news/2025/10/06/15/26/zheng-tiburonch-2025.jpg”>
^{Michael Cheng won the Tiburon Challenge. Photo credit: Natalie King}

In Chicago, Zheng competed in the main draw through the ATP Next Gen Accelerator, a program designed to increase the development pathways for top players in the U.S. collegiate system to gain direct access to select Challenger events.

“It’s definitely a very helpful program. It gives players a lot of motivation to get into college and go down that path,” Zheng said. “You just start out in your career. You don’t really have to struggle in Futures – there are always good players in Futures and you can lose at any time and it’s really a grind. You have to do a lot of weeks of training on the road before you get to Challenger level.

“Then you get a good finish like I did in Chicago, and all of a sudden you’re ranked enough to be in the Challenger main draw on your own. I think that’s a great move.”

With consecutive hot performances, Zheng Zhi’s world ranking reached a career-high 180th. From his first participation in this season’s challenge in late May to now, Zheng Zhi’s PIF ATP ranking has soared by more than 500 places.

Zheng has won 15 of his last 16 games at all levels and is balancing that success with academics. To make matters worse, all of Zheng’s classes at Columbia were in-person, forcing him to juggle coursework and travel without the flexibility of online learning.

“You talk to all the professors and figure out what the most meaningful competition is,” Zheng said. “Then, while you’re on the road, you try to catch up on schoolwork and stay in touch with your professors to make sure everything is going smoothly.”

Fortunately, Zheng is no stranger to balancing school and tennis. It’s something he’s been doing since middle school, when he commuted to the USTA’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

“I went there three days a week. I missed my last two classes at secondary school very much. My parents talked to the school and we made sure [it would be okay]” said Zheng, who won the New Jersey singles title in 2021 for Delbarton School.

“My mom would pick me up from school and drive me to the bus. I would take the bus to the Port Authority, and then I would take the 7 train basically to the tennis center there. And then I would come back the same way. It would probably be an hour and a half one way, something like that.”

Zheng took up tennis when he was six or seven, long before he made these sacrifices. The New Jersey native would go to the local courthouse with his sister and father.

“He thought I had some talent,” Zheng said. “I had good hand-eye coordination and I could hit the ball over the net even though I had never touched a racket before. He loved tennis and was passionate about the sport and he wanted to see how far he could go.”

Although Zheng initially struggled to compete with other kids during his first year of USTA training, it was only a matter of time before the tables turned. Through it all, one consistent voice has been important: Zheng’s father.

“My father always had absolute faith in me that I could eventually make money as a professional tennis player,” said Zheng, who works with coach Nguyen Roelofs. “So that daily reinforcement helped me and made me believe that maybe I had a chance to do this.”

With each passing week, Zheng continues to change this perhaps Come into reality.