Michael Chang, Tiananmen Square, and the 1989 French Open

It's day two of the 2014 French Open. The serene afternoon gives way to balls crashing back and forth across the court, destroying the perfectly raked red clay and dirtying the player's socks and shoes. There is no replay system here. Umpires continue to rely on the indentation of shots to settle disputed calls. As many sporting events look almost unrecognizable today compared to years past, there is a comforting sense of familiarity at the French. It remains largely unchanged. 

On this day, Kei Nishikori is fighting a losing battle. The No. 9 seed is about to go down to unheralded Martin Klizan in straight sets. He looks to his coaching box for advice, but there's nothing to be done at this point. Tennis is a lonely sport. There's no one to sub in for you when times get tough. Nishikori is going to have to find his own way, like his coach did nearly a quarter-century ago. 

Michael Chang, perhaps more than anyone, knows how much you have to sacrifice and struggle to win in Paris, and can now impart that knowledge on Nishikori after a disappointing defeat. Or at the very least, give him some advice about keeping things in perspective. Chang returned to the French this year quietly as a coach, but there was a time when he made these courts come alive for two weeks, and refused to be silenced. 

Roland Garros was the setting 25 years ago when an inexperienced 17-year-old from Hoboken, New Jersey took on one of the greatest players to ever pick up a racquet, Ivan Lendl. The reigning world No. 1 had already won the French Open three times, while Chang, on the other hand, was still getting used to the clay. It was a quintessential David versus Goliath matchup in the fourth round. 

To make the uphill climb even steeper for Chang, the young American's body began turning against him late in the match. He cramped up as dehydration kicked in, making it difficult to move without experiencing searing pain in his lower body.  

Thousands of miles away another battle was going on. A far more important one. Protesters in China occupied Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989 after the passing of Hu Yaobang, a former Communist Party General Secretary who was deposed after fighting for more jobs for the Chinese people.    

It is estimated that 100 million people participated in the protests, which spanned seven weeks, fighting for things that are often taken for granted in many parts of the world. Citizens demanded freedom of speech and political reform. The demonstrations were peaceful, but the way they ended were not. 

The government declared martial law on May 20 and sent hundreds of thousands of soldiers to Beijing. Things came to a head on June 4, when unarmed protesters tried to prevent tanks from entering Tiananmen Square, resulting in the military using deadly force. It's unknown how many people lost their lives because the Chinese government kept those details confidential, but it's believed to be anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand. 

[Courtesy: @BostonDotCom]

Chang, who has deep roots in China, was forced to take on Lendl a day after the massacre. His parents are from Taiwan and although they both immigrated to the United States by 1966, Chang's passion for his heritage remains strong. He would go on to serve as an ambassador for the 2008 Beijing Olympic bid and was honored by the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California in 2009.

Given Chang's background, it would be understandable if his focus wandered from the tennis court as he was preparing to clash with Lendl. In a 2009 Los Angeles Times story, he recalled watching the tragic events with his parents in their Paris hotel room. 

"A lot of people forget that Tiananmen Square was going on," Chang said. "The crackdown that happened was on the middle Sunday at the French Open, so if I was not practicing or playing a match, I was glued to the television, watching the events unfold."

Whether Chang was distracted or simply overwhelmed by Lendl's skill set, he quickly dropped the first two sets 6-4, 6-4. After Chang was broken to start the third, it looked like this would be a typical Lendl beatdown, and a scenario that had played out before. 

The two met a year earlier when Chang was 16 in an exhibition match in Iowa. Lendl quickly disposed of the youngster 6-2, 6-3 and provided some advice for Chang as a parting gift when they rode back to the hotel together.

"Do you want to know why I beat you today?" Lendl asked, via ESPN.

"OK," Chang said, "tell me why you kicked my butt so bad."

"Truthfully," said Lendl, "you've got nothing that can hurt me. You've got no serve; your second serve is not very strong. So, pretty much, whenever I play you, I can do whatever I want, however I want, and I'm going to beat you pretty comfortably like I did today."

Things wouldn't be so easy this time around for the Czech, however. Chang overcame that early break from Lendl and rallied to capture the third set 6-3. He then escaped the fourth set with a 6-3 win to level the match. That's when things got interesting, and painful for Chang. 

The final set would give fans a glimpse of what they could expect from Chang throughout his career. At five-foot-nine, he lacked many of the physical attributes that rivals Jim Courier, Pete Sampras, and Andre Agassi boasted, but he scratched and clawed his way into a place in American tennis lore. Chang had no business winning 34 singles titles, capturing a major championship, and working his way up as high as No. 2 in the world, but he refused to be denied. 

If Chang had no business accomplishing the aforementioned accolades, he certainly had no business competing with Lendl after he cramped up in the fifth set. Chang was forced to guzzle water and scarf down bananas during change overs in order to replenish his body, but it was no use. It was agony anytime he attempted to move for a ball. He was on the brink of giving in.

"I was really close to quitting," Chang told The Guardian in 2013. "I started to say to myself: 'Who am I kidding here? I'm 17 years old and I'm playing against the No. 1 player in the world. It wouldn't be so bad to just call it a day.'"

"When I got to the service line, I got an unbelievable conviction of heart. Looking back, I really feel like it was the Lord kind of telling me: 'Michael, what do you think you're doing here?' If I quit once, the second, third, fourth or fifth time that I am faced with that kind of circumstance, that kind of difficulty, I'm going to quit again." 

Instead, Chang pressed on and resorted to hitting moon shots to try and keep Lendl off balance. He even pulled out the rarely seen underhand serve, proving, if nothing else, he was at least going to finish the match. Realizing his serve had lost the majority of its velocity since the cramps were preventing him from putting his lower-body behind the swing, Chang started to mix things up, to the amazement of fans at Court Philippe Chatrier.

The tactics were working. The normally tranquil Lendl became rattled as Chang capitalized to the tune of a 5-3 lead. The young American amazingly found himself with two match points on Lendl's serve, and he still had one more trick up his sleeve. Chang crept right up near the service line as his opponent prepared to serve. A befuddled Lendl looked at the chair umpire hoping for some clarification, but after a short delay, he was forced to play on and double faulted, giving Chang the most improbable of victories. 

As Chang crumpled to the red clay in a mix of pain and jubilation, one could only imagine what was going through his head. At 17, he already had a victory that would be replayed during rain delays at the French Open for years to come. A week later he would defeat Stefan Edberg in a five-set final - an anticlimactic finish after what Chang had been through - giving him his first and only major title.  

Chang's win ended a five-year major drought for American men, but his concern remained with the Chinese people.  

"What it was really about," Chang said, "was an opportunity to bring a smile upon Chinese people's faces around the world when there wasn't a whole lot to smile about. I honestly feel that that was God's purpose for allowing me to be able to get through those matches."

As Chang's victory is remembered, the Chinese government would like everyone to forget about that day at Tiananmen, which is an impossibility for those influenced by the events. The Tiananmen Mother's group, an organization made up of people who lost a family member that day, writes a letter once a year to the government hoping to receive the simplest of concessions, but they continue to wait for an apology. 

“Those in power can erase memory, but there is a price for this,” Rowena He, a Harvard University professor told The Province in April. 

“We have had three generations of leaders since the protests,” said the head of Hong Kong's Labour party Lee Cheuk-yan. “When you look at them, each generation has a tighter grip on human rights than the one before it. It is not realistic to think they will admit their mistakes.”

Politics and sports crossed paths long before the 1989 French Open, and will continue to do so. However, in a society caught in the grip of social media, athletes will be wary of what they say or do. Although iconic moments such as Tommie Smith and John Carlos' display on the podium at the 1968 Olympics stand out, they are few and far between. 

Athletes are typically more comfortable retreating to their own world and living in a vacuum during pivotal competitions, rather than saying or doing something that could be misconstrued. 

Chang's statement wasn't powerful. In fact, he didn't really make a statement at all. Yet his actions on the court spoke louder than words. While some would try and block out what was happening in another part of the world at the time, Chang acknowledged what was going on in Tiananmen Square and used it as motivation. 

It's unclear how many smiles he actually brought to the Chinese people during that troubled time, but Chang never forgot that his struggle paled in comparison to theirs.