There are total of 6 Chinese girls playing in this year’s US Open. 5 of them have to play through the qualifying rounds first because of their rankings are not in the top 100 when the US Open draw was announced. Peng Shuai is the only player entered the main draw directly. Li Na and Zheng Jie were both injured and did not play this year.

Of the 5 players fighting to get into the main draw, only Yan Zi made it through and she lost in the first round of the main draw in straight sets to a no-name Russian player. Watching from court side, I think the result was fair and Yan Zi was just beaten by a better player. Her over all games were weaker than her opponent’s. From what I can see, Yan Zi’s ground strokes are very good, and they are really up there with the top players, her movement is also quite good. But her serves, transition shots, net plays will need to be improved. I was kind of surprise about her net plays, thought it should be much better considering how much doubles she plays. In any case, she has the best result this year. She was in the mixed doubles semi.

Yan Zi

In my opinion, Peng Shuai is the best Chinese player at the US Open this year, but she also lost in the first round to Italian player Panetta(once a top 20 ranked player). Peng should have won the match if she was not having problems with her foot. She has very powerful ground strokes from both sides. And often put her opponent on defense with 1 or 2 shots. She blew Panetta away in the first set. All of Peng’s supporters courtside were pumped up. Then a surprise came, Peng called for trainer! And the trainer treated her feet. Her movement was not the same in the second set and lost quite badly. She did try her best in the 3rd set, but eventually lost 6-4. A very close and hard fought match. She did show her mental toughness this time though comparing to a couple of years ago. From what I can see, Peng’s potential is good. She is big girl, and has power shots, she has the best serves among the Chinese girls but has the same common problems with mid-court transition shots and poor volleys. She should have won the match if she was determined enough to come to the net during a few critical points of the match.

Peng Shuai at practice


with her new coach Michael Chang


During her match with Panetta

Saw a little bit of a Sun Tiantian match, can’t really comment much based on how little I saw. She definitely has big ground strokes, but from the little time that I stood there watched, at least half of her power groundies were either long(some of them way long) or into the net. Very inconsistent. She lost in the second round of qualifying.


Sun Tiantian

There were 2 young players this year, Zheng Shuai and Sun Sheng-Nan both are about 18 years old according to the Chinese coach I spoke to on the court side. Both of them lost in the second round of qualifying.

Zheng Shuai is a bigger girl, similar size as Peng Shuai, and moves quite well. She has good ground strokes, but very weak serves and net games. She has good potential and could be a very good player in a couple of years.


Zheng Shuai



Sun Sheng-Nan is a lefty. Good ground strokes, but I think she needs to improve just about all aspect of her games. She is a very pretty girl.


Sun Shengnan


Beautiful girl, isn't She?