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For Zheng Jie, it all came down to the nifty clothes. A lot of youngsters fall in love with tennis because of the exhilaration of a perfect ace or the thrilling geometry of a well-placed volley. But when Zheng was growing up in China's rural Sichuan province, she knew little about the game. The coaches who approached her in 1990, when she was seven years old, had to explain that tennis was like ping-pong, only with a bigger, fuzzier ball. Still, there were advantages to playing this strange sport. "Because my teammates and I were among the first people to play tennis in China, we always got new outfits," recalls Zheng, now 22, who nabbed her first Women's Tennis Association (WTA) singles and doubles titles in Hobart, Australia, last year. "China was poor back then, so we loved tennis because it gave us a chance to wear cool clothes."

The yellow jersey and black pants that Zheng wore to practice during a recent national-team training session in southern China's Jiangmen city were hardly flashy, but the future of Chinese women's tennis may soon shine as brightly as a sequined Serena Williams ensemble. In 2002, there was not a single Chinese in the top 100 of the WTA tour. Last year, there were three in the top 50. The breakout moment for Chinese women's tennis came in 2004 when a hitherto unknown Chinese duo struck doubles gold at the Athens Olympics. Even the tennis cognoscenti, who easily negotiated the tongue-twister names of the blond, leggy Russians who have come to dominate the tour in recent years, knew little about Sun Tiantian and Li Ting. Today, they have been joined by another pair, Zheng and her fellow Sichuan native Yan Zi, who captured three doubles titles last season. In singles competition, a baby-faced 20-year-old named Peng Shuai last year reached China's highest-ever world ranking, 31, by trouncing top-10 players such as Kim Clijsters and Elena Dementieva. Peng even made the semi-finals in a warm-up tournament to last year's Australian Open, and Chinese fans hope she can match that effort when the year-opening grand slam kicks off in Melbourne next week.

Despite their turbo-charged race up the rankings, China's tennis prodigies haven't become celebrities across Asia like India's Sania Mirza or Thailand's Paradorn Srichaphan. Unlike other top athletes who use international competitions to hone their skills and raise their profiles, Chinese stars have a habit of emerging almost fully formed from the country's secretive sports system. In China, athletics are viewed as a tool for national glory, not individual accomplishment. During mandatory national-team training, such as the session in Jiangmen last month, China's tennis stars must sweat through seven hours of practice a day. Coaches, most of whom never played competitively on an international level themselves, rely on monotonous drills to keep the women in shape. Roommates are assigned and mealtimes set. Letting loose at a nightclub, as Anna Kournikova or Jennifer Capriati might, is forbidden. "Foreign coaches just teach you on the court," says Zheng. "Our Chinese coaches are involved in all aspects of our life." Indeed, 23-year-old Li Na, who was ranked 33 in the world last year, quit Chinese tennis in late 2002 for about a year partly because she felt the training was too regimented and outdated.

For China's tennis prodigies to vault into the top ranks, as the Russians have, they'll need one crucial ingredient: international competition. The country's tennis program once focused almost exclusively on domestic tournaments and obscure regional competitions. Four years ago China decided to strengthen its women's tennis team and started to allow athletes to spend more time on the WTA tour. Still, China's top women—currently required to hand over up to 65% of their earnings to the state—were obliged to skip Wimbledon last year in order to train for the National Games, a domestic version of the Olympics. "We believe that winning the National Games is the greatest joy," says Yan, who won the national doubles title with Zheng in October. "Foreigners are more individualistic and care about their WTA ranking, but we feel proudest when we do something good for our province or our country." Such national spirit is rare in the hyper-competitive world of pro tennis, but it's not surprising: the Chinese women's squad, like all other athletes in China, has to attend patriotic education classes as part of their national-team training.

The Chinese tennis federation has taken halting steps toward opening up. In order to match the women's talents with equally top-notch training, the federation has brought in foreign coaches for short-term stints. In 2003, the sports authority also allowed wunderkind Peng to attend the prestigious Evert Tennis Academy in Florida. "She excelled very quickly," recalls John Cappo, managing director of IMG China, who has acted as Peng's agent. "In China, coaches focus on punishment and point out players' faults. We convinced her that she's a winner, and she started acting like one." Peng transformed from a top-300 to top-100 player. But within two months of her arrival in the U.S., Peng was recalled by the local tennis team from her adopted hometown, Tianjin. Though she did spend nearly two years overseas, frequent trips back to China to compete in various domestic tournaments made it near impossible to focus fully on improving her game. "A lot of the people who run tennis in China are appointed officials who don't understand the sport on an international level," says Cappo. "Many of them have never even played tennis before."

Peng has intimated that she would like to leave the national team after the Australian Open and find her own coach instead of sharing one with several other Chinese women. Her style of play, a powerful baseline game anchored by double-handed ground strokes on both sides, contrasts with that of the other Chinese who tend to rely on doggedness and consistency. The one-size-fits-all coaching method is likely holding her back. "She could be a top-10 player, easy," says a European coach who trained with Peng in China. "But the Chinese have to be willing to let her go, and I'm not sure they'll do that. They want credit for developing her, and they can't get that if she goes abroad." Should Peng choose to break with the national team on her own, she could forfeit valuable commercial endorsements at home if the Chinese tennis authority blacklists her. "Wherever I play, my heart will always belong to China," an emotional Peng told TIME during a short break during national-team practice. "Everyone should know that." Certainly, there are precedents: world No. 4 Maria Sharapova still plays for Russia even though she has lived in Florida since she was nine.

For Peng's teammates, though, her previous stint in America is a source of envy. "I wish I could train with the world's best, but I'm too old now," says Yan, 21. "Maybe the next generation of Chinese tennis players can do that." Teammate Zheng, who jokes that she prefers singles tennis to doubles competition because it's more lucrative, is more practical. "In the U.S. you can buy so many nice clothes," she says. "There's just a lot more choice there." Even after all these years, sometimes it's still about the clothes.

• Hannah Beech | Jiangmen
• Molded by a socialist training system, Chinese women are storming the global rankings in what was once a decidedly foreign sport