Under new leadership, the association hopes that newly secured funding will help players like Lee and Chung, as well as develop juniors by paying for travel to warmer climates during winter months.

Lee does not believe that his hearing impairment will hold him back — “It doesn’t really matter,” he said — but he acknowledged that another physical disadvantage might: At 5 feet 9, he is a shrub amid the redwoods of professional men’s tennis. In an era of increasingly physical competition, only one player in the ATP top 50, 21st-ranked David Ferrer, is as short as Lee. Only six players are under 6 feet.

Lee travels with Woo, who serves as a hitting partner and speaks limited English, as he navigates his first laps on the circuit. Woo said that although Lee might sometimes feel intimidated by being one of the youngest on tour, he keeps an unrelentingly positive attitude, and is comfortable interacting with other players socially.

While Lee can compete without much issue on court, save for sometimes not noticing out or let calls, other tour regulations may prove challenging. All players are required to participate in news conferences after each match, if requested by the news media.

While he is effusive in nonverbal communications across linguistic boundaries, formal interviews can be burdensome for Lee because he must read an interpreter’s lips, and his own speech is often not readily understood. When Lee was interviewed by a Korean television station after a match at the National Sports Festival, the station used subtitles.

There can also be benefits to Lee’s unique situation, however.

“Of course I do want my player to be treated as a normal player, but we have some opportunities and some advantages from being deaf, business-wise,” said Lee Dong-yeop, his agent. “Because no one has done this before.”

One of the first boosts came from the car manufacturer Hyundai, which began sponsoring Lee when he was 13 and recently renewed its support through 2020. In a statement, Hyundai said that it was “astonished and inspired by his relentless spirit to reach the top as a tennis player despite his handicap of being deaf” and that the company “felt the responsibility to give him support as a responsible company in the Korean society.”