China: an emerging force in women’s tennis

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

'Terror strike could tilt investors to China’India has little room for China-style stimulusJapan unveils $277 bn bailout packagePak' s forex reserves fall $30 mln

: At the recently concluded Watsons Water Challenge Women’s Tournament in Hong Kong, the eyes of the media and spectators alike were focused on the 19-year-old tennis star from Hyderabad, Sania Mirza. Despite the bitterly cold weather that plagued much of the tournament, Sania’s matches saw some of the highest turn-outs. Her matches were punctuated by cries of encouragement, thunderous applause (even at the opponent’s mistakes) and several catcalls. Unfortunately, Sania’s performance didn’t quite live up to expectations. She lost all her single’s matches in straight sets. In the doubles, where she was paired with world no. 2, Kim Clistjers, they won their first match but subsequently lost.

To be fair to Sania, it was her first tournament of the year and I’m sure her performance will improve during the course of the year. However, it was another player who many, in fact, viewed as just the obligatory “Chinese face” in the tournament, who may eventually be more representative of the future of women’s tennis. At world no. 55, the diminutive Zhang Jie (she is 5 feet 4 inches) was the only player to take a set off Clistjers, the eventual winner of the tournament. Given that the match was played late on a Thursday night, few may have seen it and the score doesn’t do justice to Zhang’s performance. 22 year-old Zhang Jie’s consistency and accuracy caught Clistjers off guard and the world no. 2 had to dig deep to emerge victorious.

Unfortunately for the audience, and for Zhang, an injury forced her to withdraw from her subsequent singles and doubles matches.

Zhang is representative of a growing group of Chinese women that are stealthily climbing up the ranks of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). Till 2002, there was not one Chinese player in the top 100 of the WTA tour. It all changed after the 2004 Athens Olympics when the Chinese duo of Li Ting and Sun Tiantian (now ranked 38 and 39 in doubles) came out of nowhere to take the women’s doubles gold.