Where are the Chinese Tennis Stars?
Four years ago, there were six Chinese women ranked in the top 100 and Chinese doubles teams had won a Gold medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics, as well as two Grand Slam doubles titles in 2006. Na Li became the first Chinese woman to reach a Grand Slam
quarterfinals in 2006 at Wimbledon. Since then Jie Zheng has reached the Wimbledon semis and earlier this year Na Li and Jie Zheng made history when they both reached the Australian Open semis. In 2010, there were four Chinese women in the Australian Open, three at the French Open and U.S. Open and only two at Wimbledon. However, today there are only four women ranked in the top 100, Na Li (11th), Jie Zheng (25th), Shuai Zhang (91st) and Shuai Peng (95th) and there is one other Chinese woman ranked 131st. Na Li did crack the top ten earlier this year while Jie Zheng is sidelined because of surgery for the rest of the year. On the men’s side, the highest ranked Chinese man is 308th followed by two other players ranked 337th and 399th.
There have been major men’s and women’s professional tournaments in China since at least 2002 when the ATP Masters Cup year-end championships was played in Shanghai. Since then, China has also hosted the tennis event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics where Jie Zheng and Zi Yan captured the bronze medal in women’s doubles (the Chinese women did not win any singles medals). There have been clearly been efforts to develop more and better Chinese tennis players. Given the money and fame that a player can earn through tennis compared to other popular rackets sports such as badminton and table tennis, one assumes that it is still only a matter of time before China becomes a true tennis powerhouse similar to Russia.
There have been major men’s and women’s professional tournaments in China since at least 2002 when the ATP Masters Cup year-end championships was played in Shanghai. Since then, China has also hosted the tennis event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics where Jie Zheng and Zi Yan captured the bronze medal in women’s doubles (the Chinese women did not win any singles medals). There have been clearly been efforts to develop more and better Chinese tennis players. Given the money and fame that a player can earn through tennis compared to other popular rackets sports such as badminton and table tennis, one assumes that it is still only a matter of time before China becomes a true tennis powerhouse similar to Russia.
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