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China guns for Fed Cup
By Zhao Rui (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-07-09 07:41

China's women's tennis is now once again on the brink of an historic breakthrough as the team has a chance to enter the World Group Two of the Federation Cup for the first time in the country's 100 year tennis history.

Spearheaded by World No 44 Li Na, who has recovered from an ankle injury, China's women players are scrambling for the precious berth against Slovenia this weekend at the Tennis Centre of the National Sports Training Centre in Beijing, the venue that witnessed China's humiliating loss to the formidable Russia in their first attempt of the World Group Play-offs three years ago.

But this time, the Chinese girls are looking to a different story.

"I am fully confident to win this decisive event against Slovenia," said China's world No 74 Zheng Jie. "The memory of being ousted without any resistance by Russia is still lively for me, but we have grown stronger now.

"With three years competing at the WTA pro tours, I believe I can win this chanllenge and the result is set to be different."

China has lined up Li Na and Zheng in the singles matches and Olympic doubles gold medallists Li Ting and Sun Tiantian for the doubles. The prodigy Peng Shuai, who managed to push the world No 1 Lindsay Davenport on the red alert in the singles second round of the French Open this year, has to skip the event due to the WTA tournaments arranged by her agent IMG in the United States.

Team Slovenia, known for a quarter-final appearance in the Fed Cup World Group in 2003, listed its best player, world No 58 Katarina Sribotnik, who displayed good form in the Wimbledon Open last month by entering the third round before losing to the Russian Maria Sharapova. But other three players on the roaster, Andreja Klepac, Tina Pisnik and Tina Krizan, are all ranked out of 200th in the WTA Standings.

"This is a good chance for us to make a spot in the world group," said Jiang Hongwei, head coach of China's team. "We will take the advantage of our singles' matches and try to end up the event as early as we can.

"But I have to say that the chance of winning the matches is equal for both of the teams."

According to the Fed Cup schedule, there are two singles matches on Saturday, and then the reverse singles matches take place on Sunday. The final match will be a doubles contest.

Earlier this year, China won the Fed Cup Group A in the Asian-Oceania region by defeating Singapore, Kazakhstan, India and Australia without losing a match en route to their second play-offs.

"All four players have been on good form recently," said Li Ting. "We hope to capitalize on the home soil and fans can wait and see what will happen then."

The Fed Cup World Group contains two classes with eight teams playing in each and only the Group One teams are able to contend for the Fed Cup title. The winning nations from Regional competitions will face the four nations that lose their World Group Two ties, in the Play-offs, to determine their positions of the next year.

Since 2002, Chinese players have started to launch their tight WTA pro tours schedule, which saw each take part in over 40 matches during the course of the year.

In 2004, China's tennis reached its highest point to date, highlighted by the achievements of a group of talented women players.

Zheng made it into the top 16 in the 2004 French Open and Li Ting paired with Sun, won an unprecedented Olympic gold in the women's doubles at the Athens Games. In October last year, Li Na came out of retirement and clinched China's first ever WTA title in Guangzhou. Li then secured China's best record in a grand slam event by reaching the third round in the 2005 Australian Open.

(China Daily 07/09/2005 page11)



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