Chang Breaks Hip in Freak Mishap : Tennis: World’s fifth-ranked player suffers injury during practice for exhibition. He might be out for eight weeks.

Michael Chang broke his left hip in a freak mishap as he hit a tennis ball during practice in Florida Wednesday and might be out for eight weeks. Chang said he heard the sound of his hip breaking.

“I went for a backhand deep in the corner and when I made contact, my hip cracked,” Chang said Friday. “I heard it crack.”

X-rays have revealed a small crack about two millimeters wide in Chang’s hip socket. The injury requires neither surgery nor a cast, although Chang expects to be on crutches for a month.

“It’s just bad luck,” said Chang, 17.

Chang, who won the French Open in June, was selected Wednesday to be a member of the U.S. Davis Cup team that will play Mexico in a first-round match Feb. 2-4 at La Costa, but he might be forced to miss that event.

Asked if his hopes of playing against the Mexicans have been dashed, Chang said: “Pretty much.”

Jeff Austin, Chang’s agent at Advantage International, said: “He’d like to play it, but he’s not going to jeopardize his career.”

U.S. Davis Cup captain Tom Gorman said he and Chang have agreed to talk next week and then decide whether he should name a replacement.

“I’m just kind of in a holding pattern right now,” Gorman said. “We’ll just wait.

“It is just a real freaky injury,” he said. “The first concern of every player is he hopes it’s not too bad. Then the rest sorts itself out.”

Aaron Krickstein has been named to play singles, and Rick Leach and Jim Pugh are the doubles team. Should Chang be unable to play the other singles, Gorman has four other candidates to chose from: No. 6-ranked Brad Gilbert, No. 7 Andre Agassi, No. 10 Jay Berger and No. 13 Tim Mayotte.

Gilbert may be the most likely candidate simply because he has experience in such matters. Gilbert was called in to replace John McEnroe when McEnroe hurt his shoulder at Wimbledon and could not play in the Davis Cup semifinal in Munich against West Germany last July. The United States lost, 3-2, but Gilbert won both his matches.

However, Gilbert said he is not committed to playing even if he is asked.

“It’ll be interesting. . . . I was pretty disappointed when I wasn’t picked the first time around, so I’m reserved about my feelings,” Gilbert said.

“Obviously, I’ll probably hear from Gorman, but I definitely wouldn’t be surprised to see them choose Agassi. He’s still No. 7 in the world.

“Anyway, I think against Mexico, we can put five different teams on the court and still beat them.”

Chang’s injury occurred near the end of an hour-long workout at the ATP headquarters in Ponte Vedra, Fla., where Chang was practicing with Brian Gottfried, his grass-court coach this year.

Ranked fifth in the world, Chang was supposed to play in the $650,000 Stakes Match, an exhibition that began Friday at Palm Coast, Fla. Chang said he knew something was wrong when he heard his hip crack.

“I just started to limp all over the place,” he said. “I couldn’t stop limping.”

Dr. Paul Shirley, who is the ATP’s medical director, examined Chang Wednesday at Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, Fla., and at first thought there had been only a muscle pull. X-rays were taken as a precaution.

Chang said doctors considered his injury, a fracture of the cup of the left hip joint at the point where the ball goes into socket, freakish.

“They said it was really unusual because I didn’t knock into anything,” Chang said. “I had so much muscle power, or something, that it just cracked it. Usually, one doctor said, he sees it happen in contact sports like football or in car accidents.”

Chang said he would return home today to Placentia to recuperate.

Chang said he is taking this setback in stride.

“What else can you do?” he said. “Basically, I was really looking forward to an off-season because I wanted to work on a lot of things. Now, this kind of takes a lot of the timing away. I just try to look at everything as optimistically as I can.”