Jie Zheng falters before Williams
It was close… but no cigar, and we are left to dream of what could’ve been. If you have being under a rock this past week, here’s a summary. Jie Zheng, a Chinese wild card entry ranked 131 managed to beat world number 1, Ana Ivanovic, in the fourth round, and then beat the number 18 seed, Nicole Vaidisova, in the quarter finals to become the first Chinese to reach the Wimbeldon semi finals. Nonetheless, Jie Zheng just couldn’t handle Serena Williams’s power hitting and outrageously big serves.
Okay, I’m offically going to stop giving Zheng crap about her lack of talent. Certainly she showed us plenty of it as she stringed together a series of brillant shots to put pressure on Williams. But, this is Serena Williams we’re talking about, and we know there’s no way she’ll get distracted or implode like the previous opponents Zheng faced. Thus, she had to win this one with pure skills, and unfortuneately, her game was just not good enough to pull it off.
Honestly, I would’ve loved for Zheng to make more history, and claim glorious victory for the motherland… oh wait that’s Russia… But I guess it just wasn’t to be. Now I’m going to tune out of tennis until maybe the men’s finals. (Obviously, I’m not going to miss Federer going for number 6)
PS: the score was 6-2 7-6(7)
4 July, 2008 at 5:31 am
The first set was pretty painful to watch, but some great tennis was played in the second. Zheng certainly does have some great ground-strokes, but her serve leaves much to be desired. I remember seeing Serena hit 100+ mph second serves, while Zheng only manages around 80 mph. She did kick things up a notch after 5-all though.
Also, she was definitley at a disadvantage in the tiebreak because of the sunlight on her side of the deuce court. It’s ridiculously hard for the eyes to adjust to a dark ball suddenly appearing in a bright patch. But hey, we get another Williams sisters final, which is certainly something to look forward to.
4 July, 2008 at 6:47 pm
This is about tennis, right?
4 July, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Really, Zheng didn’t have the game to beat Williams. So unless Williams essentially imploded, like Ivanovic and Vaidisova did, there’s really little chance she could’ve won.
@KT Samurai: yes, yes it is.