Home players at
China Open have been poured cold water on as only the historic
Olympic gold winning pair Sun Tiantian and Li Ting survived in four
matches involving Chinese out of total five on day five schedule of
the WTA hard court tournament.
History-maker Peng Shuai, the first ever Chinese making quarters
at the secondary China Open with a second round victory on
Wednesday, became the first sacrifice in the faded China Day, and
then the teenage duo Liu Wanting and Sun Shengnan let their chance
go in ease at a doubles quarterfinal clash, which was followed by
giant-killer Sun Tiantian's singles lose late on Friday
evening.
As all Chinese suffered, top seed Maria Sharapova beat the
39th-ranked Shinobu Asagoe of Japan 6-4, 6-1 in breeze to make an
easy through to the singles semi-finals, while the third-seed
American Venus Williams announced her withdrawal just more than an
hour ahead of her quarter-final showdown against Poland's Marta
Domachowska.
The world No. 7 Venus has cited an excuse of left knee pain
which halted her Thursday's 6-3, 6-1 win over unseeded Spaniard
Nuria Llagostera Vives. But WTA officials confirmed to Xinhua that
the injury bothering the five-time grand slam title holder is
nothing to do with sprain or ligament, "Just pain."
Olympic women's doubles champions Sun and Li became the only
Chinese saving some credit for the hosts, stumbling to outlast Vera
Douchevina from Russia and Natalie Grandin of South Africa 6-1,
7-6(5), 6-2 for the doubles semi-finals, where unseeded Chinese duo
Yan Zi and Zheng Jie will play Corina Morariu of the United States
and Flavia Pennetta of Italy on Saturday.
Being broken thrice in the opening set, Li and Sun, whose strong
play in Athens claimed a historic Olympic gold medal for China 13
months ago, were taken more than two hours to claim the late coming
victory.
Trailing 3-1 in the second set, Sun served the fifth game and
played a winner against Grandin's return to break the opponents for
the first time into the match and to narrow the deficit to 3-2.
Sun, whose giant-killing run in singles was snapped by Russian
sensation Maria Kirilenko after losing 6-1, 6-3 on Friday, again
played the ball with shifting directions to force tie breaker when
being down 6-5 after leveling the games of second set for three
times, and won it in luck as Grandin double-faulted to succumb to
7-5.
Launching a strongly comeback in the decider, Sun and Li forced
an error from the opponent to win the set 6-2 after breaking them
for three times.
Early in the first match on day five schedule, Peng Shuai,
highest ranked Chinese woman in the world currently, fell out of
the tournament after a quarterfinal action against Anna-Lena
Groenefeld of Germany in straight sets 7-5, 6-1 on Friday.
The 19-year-old once led the first set 5-4 but gave in the next
three games to end the set by 7-5. And in a lop-sided second set,
Peng easily threw in the towel at 6-1.
"I feel a little bit nervous in the first set and didn't grab my
chances when leading at 5-4," Peng said, "this is my first time to
get into the main draw at the China Open, so to be in the quarters
is already a good result."
As No. 33 in the world, Peng's exit left China's only hope of
winning singles title to Olympic doubles champion Sun Tiantian, who
stunned 9th ranked Serena Williams in the second round and will
take on Russia's Maria Kirilenko later on Friday.
Peng's loss rewrote her win-loss record of 2005 as 22-15 and
that of her career 132-56, while for 30th world ranked Groenefeld
33-21 and 134-79 respectively.
Groenefeld tipped Peng as a very good player and said that many
Chinese tennis talents were coming up.
"I have to keep the ball deep on the court and go for every
chance," she said.
(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2005)