China’s Zheng Jie makes history at Wimbledon

WIMBLEDON, England - Zheng Jie’s storybook run to the Wimbledon semifinals is providing a much-needed emotional lift to her rural Sichuan province, which is devastated in the wake of an earthquake. Zheng, ranked No. 133, is the first Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam semifinal and the first wild card to get this far in Wimbledon history.

She plans to donate a large portion of her $350,000 earnings to the earthquake victims, as she did with her third-round prize money from the French Open. The rest goes to the Chinese Tennis Association. The scrappy, 5-4 player graced the front pages of China’s newspapers Wednesday after her quarterfinal win over 18th-ranked Nicole Vaidisova. It was her third upset of a Top 20 player in this tournament. She stunned No. 1 Ana Ivanovic in the third round and No. 15 Agnes Szavay in the fourth round. If Zheng’s good fortune continues, she could celebrate her 25th birthday Saturday playing in the Wimbledon final.

There is, however, a giant roadblock in her way - two-time Wimbledon champion Serena Williams. Zheng is a heavy underdog, and admits she sees "no weak link" in Williams’ game, but even if her feel-good story ends with the semifinal, she will leave happy. Zheng never imagined she would get this far when she first picked up a tennis racket at age 7. Tennis doesn’t have much history in China because the Communist regime didn’t encourage professional individual sports, but a surprise gold medal by doubles team Sun Tiantian and Li Ting at the 2004 Olympics changed attitudes. There were no Chinese women in the top 100 in 2002. Now there are four, and Zheng will leap to at least No. 31 with her performance here. Asked why there aren’t any men on the professional tennis tour, Zheng smiled and said: "Tough question; we want to know also.

The boys maybe not so much in tennis because the table tennis is so big in China. Some boys choose table tennis over tennis. "China has quite many sports which are leading in the world. Unfortunately, tennis is not one of them, but other sports - like ping-pong, diving - we are the world leaders. With more people gaining better achievement in tennis, I believe there will be more people who love this sport in the future."