Chinese Pair Making Their Mark
When Tian Tian Sun and Ting Li stunned the doubles tennis world by winning the
Gold Medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, it was the first sign that a new
Chinese revolution was on the horizon.
While the Russians were being hailed for their ability to produce a quantity of
quality tennis players after clinching three of the four women's Grand Slams in
2004, Chinese women - in both the singles and the doubles - were making their
presence felt as well.
There were high expectations that 2005 would be a breakthrough year for Chinese
tennis, especially after Jie Zheng won the Moorilla International in Hobart in
the lead-up to the Australian Open. The rest of the year brought just one
singles title for Chinese women, when Zi Yan defeated Nuria Llagostera Vives in
the Guangzhou International - the same tournament Na Li had won the previous
year when she became the first woman from her country to win a WTA event.
But while the Chinese explosion onto the singles scene is yet to make a
considerable impact, the world of doubles has been re-shaped after Sun and Li's
heroics in Athens. The Gold Medal winning pair claimed the Estoril Open title
in Portugal in April, but it was another Chinese pair who made an even bigger
impression.
Zi Yan and Jie Zheng - the two WTA singles titles winners in 2005 - made four
doubles finals in 2005, winning titles in Hobart, where Zheng took a rare
double, and Hyderabad, where they beat Sun and Li. They were also the beaten
finalists in Bali and Beijing.
But until Australian Open 2006, Yan and Zheng - China's highest-ranked doubles
players at 33 and 34 respectively - had not made an impression on tennis'
biggest stage. A quarter finals appearance at the 2005 US Open gave an
impression that the two girls from Cheng Du were on their way to the top and
that has been confirmed at Melbourne Park over the last two weeks.
Coming into the tournament seeded No.12, the pairing has swept all before them
to make it to their first Grand Slam final. On route, they have dropped just
one set, against one of the most feared women's doubles combinations in the
draw - Paolo Suarez and Virginia Ruano Pascual - in the quarter finals.
In the final they face the top-seeds, American Lisa Raymond and Australia's
Samantha Stosur, the reigning US Open champions, who knocked out Sun and Li in
the third round. Any disappointment Chinese doubles fans may have had about the
Athens Gold Medallists' early departure has been quickly allayed by Yan and
Zheng's march through the rounds.
It started on Day Four with a 48-minute romp against Russian duo Evgenia
Linetskaya and Galina Voskoboeva, where they dropped just one game. The next
day, it was a 66-minute workout against Lourdes Dominguez Lino and Maria
Sanchez Lorenzo for a 6-4 6-0 win.
After dropping just three games in their third round match against No.7 seeds
Elena Dementieva and Flavia Pennetta, their sternest test shaped up in the four
-time French Open, and 2004 Australian Open champions, Ruano Pascual and Suarez.
Yan and Zheng dropped the first set and looked in major trouble in a scrappy
second set where there were seven breaks of serve. But they battled back to
level the match with 7-5 result in the second and then made the most of their
opportunities in a third set which ended 6-1.
With that two hour and 20 minute clash under their belt, they fronted up the
next day. Only Katarina Srebotnik and Shinobu Asagoe, the No.9 seeds, stood in
between Yan and Zheng and a Grand Slam final. With ice-cool composure in the
hot conditions, they took the first set 6-2. Near flawless tennis from both
sides resulted in a tie-break in the second. Yan and Zheng served the better
and won it 7-2 to become the first Chinese pair ever to make a Grand Slam final.
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