Chen Long: Career, Rivalry, Marriage & Net Worth
We have all played badminton growing up. It’s a casual sport that anyone can play, but what if I told you there is a prodigy who was born to conquer the sport of Badminton.
Chen Long was born in China who conquered the world of professional badminton.
The prodigy is a Chinese badminton player who picked up badminton at the early age of 8 and grew up to be one of the best badminton player in Chinese badminton history.
The Asian prodigy currently stands at number 6 in the world ranking despite missing the recent Asia tour.
Chen Long is the current Olympic badminton champion who has also won two World Championships in badminton and many other tournaments.
Before taking a deep dive into Chen’s exciting career and life, let’s look at some quick facts about him.
Quick Facts
Full Name | Chen Long |
Birth Date | 18 January 1989 |
Birth Place | Shashi District, Jingzhou, China |
Religion | Unknown |
Nationality | Chinese |
Ethnicity | Asian |
Handedness | Right |
Horoscope | Capricorn |
Father’s Name | Chen Hua |
Mother’s Name | Zhang Yuxia |
Sibling | Unknown |
Age | [calculate_years datestring=”01/18/1989″] Years Old |
Height | 6 feet 2 inches (1.87m) |
Weight | 165 lbs |
Hair Color | Black |
Eye Color | Unknown |
Team | Chinese Team |
Sports | Badminton |
BWF World’s Rankings | 6th (As of 4/13/2021) |
Profession | Badminton Player |
Coach | Li Mao |
Active Years | 2007 to present |
Total Matches Played | 555 (441-won, 114-Lost) |
Marital Status | Married |
Wife’s Name | Wang Shixian |
Net Worth | $1 million – $5 million |
Social Media | None |
Badminton’s Equipment | Shuttlecock, Racquet, Net |
Last Update | [current-month], [current-year] |
Chen Long: Age, Weight, and Body Measurements
Being born on 18 January 1989, Chen is [calculate_years datestring=”01/18/1989″] Years Old.
Chen stands at 6’2″, which is approximately 1.87 meters. He is quite a tall player, considering the other players that he competes with.
The olympiad weighs about 165 lbs, and he has a very athletic body. He takes good care of himself as he needs to have a healthy and fit body to compete at the highest level.
Chen Long: Horoscope, Ethnicity, and Nationality
Being born on the 18th of January, he falls under the star sign of Capricorn.
Capricorns are said to be very hard-working people, and there is no doubt that Chen is one of them.
He is a Chinese citizen as he was born and raised in China and still resides in China.
Similarly, that makes him belong to Asian ancestry. Both his mother and father are from China as well.
Furthermore, He was born in the year of Snake, in the Chinese calendar.
Chen Long: Early Life, Family, and Education
Chen Long was born and raised in Shashi District, Jingzhou, China. He was a very athletic person from his childhood days.
His father’s name is Chen Hua, and similarly, his mother’s name is Zhang Yuxia.
There is no further information about his family except their names.
Chen seems to keep his family away from the media not to be bothered with cameras everywhere they go.
There is no information about if Chen has siblings or if he is the only child either.
Similarly, Chen has been discreet about his educational life and achievements as well.
But in one interview, we found that the Asian prodigy was just 8 years old when he decided to start playing badminton, and his parents gave him their full support.
He started playing and practicing badminton from that point and got better day by day.
Chen Long: Personal Life and Marriage
Chen Long has been pretty open about his relationship with Wang Shixian. The couple has been together since 2007.
And that’s not even the best part about them.
Both of them are professional Badminton players, and both of them were the world’s No.1 Badminton players at their prime in their Careers.
Long proposed Wang after his Hong Kong open men’s singles final. He rushed back to China to propose Wang for their marriage.
And, of course, she accepted.
They decided to get married on November 28, 2017.
They married on that day and tied their bonds, and they are still together as of now.
Chen and Wang met when they were still in the junior Chinese squad, and they fell in love with each other in the following year and started dating.
They kept their relationship hidden until 2013, before people saw them holding hands together, and the picture blew up in the Chinese media.
They had to reveal the details about their relationship soon after.
The lovely couple dated for a whole decade before tying their knot together.
Chen Long: Career
Chen picked up badminton at the age of 8, but it was not until 2006, he played for his national team.
He started his national team career in 2006 and seeing his athleticism and his extraordinary defense. He was sent to play the international matches just a year later, in 2007.
Debut
Chen’s first-ever international match was in 2007, and he showed everyone that he had the capability to become one of the best badminton player in the world.
He won the 2007 BWF World Junior Championships that was held in New Zealand. He won the championships in both singles and team events as well.
Similarly, in the same year, as he was rising to fame and getting popular even if he had just started, he won the Asian Junior Badminton Championships.
Then at that point in his career, he was named the Chinese prodigy by many media outlets.
Rise to the Top
In 2010, Chen went to Korea to participate in the Korea Open Super Series but unfortunately lost in the Semifinals to the Danish player named Peter Gade.
Similarly, in the next week, he had to compete in the Malaysian opens, but he lost again in the opening rounds.
He must have been tired of playing consecutive games that led him to those losses.
Then in March, he participated in the All England opens and got an important victory in the first round but again failed in the second round and was eliminated from the tournament.
Despite all those bad performances at the start of 2010, Chen did not lose hope and continued practicing and getting better.
His hard work paid off when Cheon made it through in the Swiss Open and even earned a second-place next to his own companion, Chen jin.
Similarly, Chen won one more title in the following month as the Chinese team registered a win in the Thomas cup.
After that, in the Bitburger Open in Germany, Chen won his first individual award by beating a Danish player in the Gp gold event.
Furthermore, in that year, Chen continued his extraordinary performance and even earned his second gold medal with China at the Asian games.
Similarly, in the Chinese super series, he faced his idol, Li Dan, in the quarter-finals, and in the semis, he faced Chen jin.
Fortunately, he beat both of them, moved to the finals, and emerged victorious after defeating Bao Chunlai.
At this point in his career, Chen was ranked the world’s no.3 badminton player.
Ups and Down in his Career
As the new season began in 2011, Chen started his new season with a hard loss to Lee Chong Wei in the Malaysian semi-finals.
Lee Chong Wei was the World’s No.1 Badminton player at that time.
He was beaten ruthlessly by Lee Chong, and as a result of that, his morale was really down, which resulted in the elimination of the Chinese team in the next series in the Korea Open.
But soon, he recovered and won the Thailand open, and that was his first individual award of that year.
In August of 2011, Chen got his revenge on Lee Chong Wei by defeating him in Japan opens, and then again in October, he defeated Lee Chong to win his third consecutive Superseries tournament.
2012 was one of Chen’s most important years as he participated in the Summer Olympics for China.
He participated in the men’s single in the Olympics, but unfortunately, he had to face loss again to Lee Chong Wei in the Semifinals.
He was very disappointed that he could not get the gold for his country but, he won the bronze medal for China in the men’s single.
Even if 2012 didn’t go so well for Chen, the next year became one of the best years of his career.
Becoming the world’s No.1 Badminton Player
In 2013, Chen beat Lee Chong Wei and got his revenge again in the All England Open finals.
Following that win, Chen won the 2013 edition of the Sudirman Cup, and he went on to win Denmark opens.
A fantastic year for him.
But misfortune was about to fall upon him as he started the season of 2014.
He started the season with a win in the Korean opens, but soon, he faced a crushing defeat to Lee Chong Wei in the All England opens.
He could not defend his title there, and then in the Indian Open, he was eliminated again by Lee Chong Wei.
The misfortune continued when the Chinese team lost in the Thomas cup to Japan in the semifinals, and the media put all the blame upon Chen Long.
His streak of losses continued as he was eliminated from Japan, and Indonesia opens in the starting rounds.
People were starting to doubt his abilities and thought he was not as good a player as before.
Instead of feeling down from all the people criticizing him, Chen was motivated to prove them wrong.
On August 31, Chen beat Lee Chong Wei in the most important competition of the year.
He beat Lee in the World Championship of badminton and won his first-ever World Championship title.
Chen then continued his win streak and win other titles and end the season with the 2014 BWF Super Series Masters Finals.
He then became the World’s No.1 Badminton player by dethroning Lee Chong Wei.
In 6 years, this was the first time someone took the first spot on the BWF World Ranking from Lee Chong.
Rivalry with Lee Chong Wei
His Rivalry with Lee continued after he had dethroned him from the first spot and taken the spot.
Chen won his second All England opens in 2015 after defeating his compatriot, Li Dan.
Then in the same year, he also won other tournaments.
In 2015, he faced his rival Lee Chong in the finals in the World Championship of badminton.
Chen emerged victorious again over Lee Chong after defeating him with 21–14, 21–17.
This was Chen’s second World Championship, and the victory over Lee in the finals made sure that he ended the year staying at the top of the BWF rankings again.
The rivalry continued when Chen faced Lee again in the finals of the 2015 Korea Open Super Series, but this time, Lee Chong came out on top and defeated Chen.
Similarly, In 2016, Summer Olympics took place, and Chen again faced his long rival Lee Chong Wei in the Badminton Men’s Singles final at the Pavilion 4, Riocentro, on 20 August 2016.
Chen emerged victorious again and grab his first-ever gold medal for China.
In the following year, he faced many ups and downs as he won few tournaments and had some rough tournaments.
He was also not able to defend his World Championship title and lost his BWF 1st ranking.
In the November of 2017, he faced Lee Chong Wei for one last time in the Yonex–Sunrise Hong Kong Open.
He ended up losing that match, but there was a great show of respect between the two rivals.
Lee Chong Wei retired in 2019, June 13. Sadly marking the end of the great rivalry between Lee Chong Wei and Chen Long.
Current Career and Stats
Chen played the most recent match in 2020, March 13, in the All Englands open, where he lost to Z.J. Lee in the quarter-finals.
Chen played 6 finals in the last two years but has not been able to win most of them. Out of the 6 finals, he was only able to win 2 of them.
He hasn’t played any games for the last year and seems to be on a break.
And he also missed the YONEX Thailand Open held just a few months ago, in January of 2021.
People are assuming either Chen is facing a nasty injury or he is planning to announce his retirement at this point.
As of now, Chen Long ranks 6th on the BWF rankings.
He played 555 games in which 441 are all wins and only 114 lose.
He has a win rate of 79.03%.
Chen Long: Racquets and Shoes
Chen Long is a very hard-working person, and once he gets attached to something, he keeps it very dear to him.
Throughout his long career of over a decade, he only changed his badminton racquet once.
He has been using the same shoe model for over 10 years as he seems not to care about significant sponsorship and deals.
He just solely wants to compete and focus on his games.
Chen used the ‘Li Ning Flame N55’ from the beginning of his career till 2017. He won many tournaments with it and even was No.1 in the world while using that Racquet.
Then in 2018, he changed his racquet to ‘Li Ning 3D Caliber 900’. This racquet is specially made to reduce the air resistance while swinging it.
Chen Long: Net Worth
Long currently ranks as the 7th most earning Badminton player globally, and he even appeared on the ‘Forbes 30 Under 30 – Asia – Entertainment & Sports’ list.
“Chen long’s net worth is estimated to be in between $1 Million to $5 Million.”
The Asian Prodigy has won countless tournaments throughout his career, earning all this money. He has gained tons of money from the BWF as well.
The Chinese professional has earned about $1,356,608 throughout his career, and he will probably increase that number after his return to the professional scene.
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Chen Long: Social Media
Unfortunately, Chen does not have any social media account of his own as of now.
He seems to fall under the people who enjoy their lives offline and don’t want to be bothered by online fame.
FAQs
Who is Chen Long’s Coach?
Chen long was coached by the infamous Li Mao.
Do Chen Long and Wang Shixian have a baby?
Yes, they have a son together.
Is Chen Long retired?
It is not clear if Chen is planning to retire or not, but he has not appeared in the professional badminton scene since march of last year.