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Tennis

Peng Shuai not to drop doubles for London's sake

Updated: 2011-04-12 11:14

(Xinhua)

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Peng Shuai not to drop doubles for London's sake

Peng Shuai of China smiles after defeating Sania Mirza of India in their women's quarter-final tennis match at the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, April 8, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

BEIJING - China's tennis ace Peng Shuai confirmed through her microblog that she will not consider dropping women's doubles for the sake of the London Olympics in 2012.

"I'm so tired (playing singles and doubles at the same time), but London Olympics is drawing near, I think doubles event is more important to me, I won't just play singles," Peng said in her microblog on Sina.com.

"It's physically hard to play both singles and doubles, but I can't say no to any of them," Peng blogged.

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Peng started this season with a busy hardcourt compaign, playing 39 singles matches plus 13 doubles matches, which leads to her fans' complaint that Peng should drop doubles competition for the sake of saving more energy in singles.

"I have discussed with my coach Alan, and we both agreed I can't reach top form quickly in terms of my physical conditions. I need more training and competition to get used to it (playing both events)," the 25-year-old added.

The world's professional tennis players, who play for a living and are attracted by the lucrative tennis tour, always skip the Olympic tennis event, but in a country the Olympic gold medalists are highly worshipped, China's tennis players are willing to play at the Olympics.

Chinese women players are making their mark in world tennis in recent years, highlighted by Li Na's runner-up finish in this season's Australian Open, but it was from the doubles event that the world started to know about Chinese tennis.

Li Ting and Sun Tiantian stunned all the professional players to win the gold in the Athens Games in 2004 and compatriots Zheng Jie/Yan Zi became the first Chinese to take the Grand Slam title. Zheng and Yan also notched up a bronze medal in the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

After the Beijing Olympics, China released four top women players including Peng from the national team, but they still need to comply with the national duty such as in the Olympics.

 

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