I love tennis: watching and playing. What with queueing with the common people overnight twice to get my tickets, fond, overpriced strawberry & cream memories of posh debenture holders drinking champagne and dozing in their seats, oh, and the tennis, Wimbledon necessarily remains my most eagerly anticipated annual sporting event. Forget football, it’s those long sweeping camera shots of the fluffy grey-cloud covered, green-treed environs of London’s SW19 that brings a rose-tinted mistiness to my eye every time.
At long last China may be joining me. Zheng Jie’s calm despatching of recent French Open champion and world number 1 Ana Ivanovic last night, in the third round of this year’s championships, couldn’t have come at a better time for her or China. She becomes the lowest ranked player ever to defeat a world number 1 at a grand slam, her own world ranking stands at 133.
Ivanovic floundered, seemingly cowed by self-imposed pressure and never able to relax as unforced errors mounted and double faults littered her performance. Full credit to Zheng for taking advantage, unleashing shots that kept deep and low, and serving out a pretty decisive victory in 2 sets: 6-1, 6-4.
Regarding China, and specifically her home province of Sichuan, Zheng Jie has already donated some of her tour prize winnings this year toward the earthquake relief operations. As The Canadian Press reports:
She was already thinking about her native Sichuan Province, devastated by last month’s massive earthquake, and what she could do to help.
“I gave the French Open prize money and after Wimbledon I want to go back to do some more to support them in my city and maybe I will give the money (from here),” she told The Associated Press after Friday’s 6-1, 6-4 victory.
Zheng was knocked out in the third round at the French Open. Here, she’ll earn US$100,000 for reaching the fourth round.
“It’s been very bad news with the earthquake because it happened in my city. I’ve been lucky because my family is OK, but others haven’t been,” said Zheng, who was born in the provincial capital, Chengdu. “I hope to make people happy with my win. I want more people to have their homes, be fine and happy.
“I feel the match is good for the Chinese because I know my parents and friends can see the TV in China for this match.”
Where she will go from here it will be interesting to watch, both at Wimbledon and in her bid for home-turf Olympic Doubles glory, but certainly in China’s turbulent 2008, this is one of those moments to cheer.
Other links:
BBC rundown of the Zheng v Ivanovic match and video clips here
Want to know what all this hitting the ball over the net stuff is about ? Official Wimbledon site here
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