Friday, Jul 04th 2008 No Comments

Wild Card Zheng Jie Eliminated from Wimbledon

Zheng Jie 2008 Wimbledon via ChinaDailyChina’s Zheng Jie, was finally eliminated from the Wimbledon’s women’s singles tennis yesterday, losing to #6 Serena Williams (USA). This was following a historic run that saw her upsetting top seeded Ana Ivanovic’s (Serbia) in Round 3 and defeating #18 Nicole Vaidisova (Czech Republic) in Tuesday’s Quarter-Finals. Ranked #133 in the world, she entered the prestigious event as a wild card and became the first Chinese player to break into the Semi-Finals.

The Chengdu native’s surprise performance captivated a nation, known more for table tennis, as Chinese around the country tuned into late-night live broadcasts both on TV and on their computers. I watched the repeatedly rain-interrupted game on the computer last night. I probably would’ve gotten this up earlier had I not immediately gone to sleep, disappointed as I was by Zheng Jie losing the tie-breaker to Serena…with an anti-climactic double-fault. Dammit. Bursting with pride, China Daily even has a poll up today asking if Zheng will win a medal at August’s Olympic Games.

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