When I was a prepubescent teen, there was one huge event that took place in the sports world that made anything seem possible. It was 1989, an innocent time when tennis was still a relevant sport and no one shunned short shorts on men. The memorable occurrence took place at the French Open when a 17-year-old upstart named Michael Chang faced the most dominant player at the time, Ivan Lendl, in a classic five-set match that you would have to YouTube to believe it (put the keywords “Michael Chang” and “French Open” in your search).

Michael Chang was the epitome of every Asian stereotype that I was trying to debunk at the time: short, smart, nerdy, fashionably challenged, and of course, an upside down bowl for a haircut. Chang was all these things, as was I, except I wasn't a world-ranked tennis player, which meant, I was a bit socially challenged and creeped out girls.

In any case, there I was completely fascinated with what was happening on television. Lendl was the outright favorite to win the whole tournament, and this fourth-round match against Chang was just a bump in the road. Lendl appeared to be cruising to a victory by winning the first two sets with ease, then without warning, Chang began to scratch away at the invincible Czech. The slender, and much taller Lendl relied on his powerful serve and heavy ground-strokes, while Chang, who is listed as 5'9" (but looks more like 5'5"), relied on his quickness and hustle.

But just as Chang started to even out the match, his legs started to give out on him. Using every delay tactic possible, Chang began to slow the game down by taking his sweet time during serves, hitting lobs on a consistent basis and even requesting an extended bathroom break. Lendl became clearly annoyed.

Chang must've picked up on this, and anyone who saw that game, should be able to recall two plays that defined not only that match but Chang's career. With his legs cramping so severely that he could barely move, Chang decided to execute an underhand serve, which totally caught Lendl by surprise. But the most well-known play (and arguably the most famous play in French Open history), took place when Chang decided to receive Lendl's incoming serve by standing just seven feet away from the net. Lendl ended up serving the ball into the net, and Chang won the match. A couple days later Change went on to defeat another strong player in Stefan Edberg to not only win the French Open, but to become the youngest male tennis player to win a major Grand Slam.

For the year following that victory, he was the Asian Michael Jordan. I have no proof statistically, but I bet from 1989 to 1990, there was an exponential spike in tennis membership among young Asian males. Chang made a believer out of nerdy, short, second-generation Asian American boys like myself. He even made sporting bowl cuts and short shorts an okay thing to do. For that calendar year, Chang became the Asian hero. You have to remember the context of 1989, where Asian males were still riding the tail-end of a decade that portrayed us horribly, most notably, as Gedde Watanabe's Long Duk Dong of Sixteen Candles.

But yes, back to Michael Chang. He was our David who slew Goliath, he was the champion of a sport that had no Asian role model, and most importantly, he showed the world that Asians could be the best at something other than math.

That was 1989.

Nearly two decades later, I'm searching for another Michael Chang moment. My hunch is that moment was like catching lighting in a bottle or seeing an Asian version of the Halley's Comet. Maybe its nostalgia or the bad kimchi I had the other night… (wait, can kimchi ever go bad considering that kimchi in its very definition is fermented cabbage? I digress) … in any case, Michael Chang, if you're out there reading this, there's a whole generation of young Asian males who think short shorts are gross, tennis is irrelevant and the Asian hero is a myth.

Personally, I don't really care about short shorts or tennis, but I'd like to see an Asian hero once in a while.

Won Kim wants to be the author behind the biography, When Tennis Met Its Match—The Story of How Michael Chang Changed the Sport.