Two years ago, everyone was saying “The Russians are coming” as Myskina, Sharapova and Kuznetsova all won their first Grand Slam titles and Russian women dominated the top tier of the Sony Ericsson WTA rankings.  The Russians are still here in full force, but in 2006, with the Olympics only two years away, the Chinese women are really starting to make their mark with six players ranked in the top 100.  Na Li, who started out as a badminton player, became the first Chinese tennis player to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal.  At Wimbledon, she lost in a very competitive match to Kim Clijsters.  It was in doubles that the Chinese women first made themselves known.  At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Ting Li and Tian Tian Sun won the Gold Medal.  In 2006, Zi Yan and Jie Zheng have already won two Grand Slam doubles titles - the Australian Open and Wimbledon.  Zheng has captured two singles titles in 2006 including beating Russian star and former French champ, Myskina, to win in Stockholm.  It’s ironic in a way that American, Michael Chang, and Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand, have been hailed as leading the Asian tennis boom - there are no Chinese men ranked in the top 100 and none played in the main draws at the 2006 French Open or Wimbledon.  In Japan, where tennis has been popular for many years, the most successful players have also been women such as Ai Sugiyama and the former star, Kimiko Date.  Perhaps the high profile of tennis at the 2008 Beijing Olympics will draw more male Asian players to the sport of tennis because clearly there is a long history of Olympic success by Asian men in other racquet sports…