Peng Shuai

Infobox Tennis player
playername= Peng Shuai


country=
residence= Boca Raton, Florida, USA
datebirth= birth date and age|1986|1|8
placebirth= Hunan, China
height= height|m=1.73
weight= convert|61.2|kg|lb st|abbr=on|lk=on
turnedpro= 2001
plays= Right; Two-handed both sides
careerprizemoney= $1,200,774
singlesrecord= 209–118
singlestitles= 0 WTA (8 ITF titles)
highestsinglesranking= No. 31 (August 15, 2005)
AustralianOpenresult= 2r (2005, 2007)
FrenchOpenresult= 2r (2005, 2006, 2008)
Wimbledonresult= 3r (2006, 2008)
USOpenresult= 2r (2008)
doublesrecord= 94–73
doublestitles= 3 WTA (3 ITF titles)
highestdoublesranking= No. 18 (June 9, 2008)
updated= October 6, 2008

Peng Shuai (Chinese: 彭帅; Pinyin: Péng Shuài; born January 8, 1986, in Hunan, China) is a Chinese professional female tennis player.

Early career

She began playing at age eight when an uncle (a famous tennis coach in China and the only other family member who plays tennis) introduced her to the game. She favors hard courts and forehand (though her backhand is the better side). Her father Peng Jijun is a police officer and her mother is Zhang Bing. At age 13, Peng Shuai was submitted to a heart surgery, a situation which she explains in the "Impossible is Nothing" campaign from Adidas.

Playing style

Her game is built upon hard-flat strokes generated by two hands on both sides. She hits the ball very cleanly, especially off her backhand. Her compact strokes allow her to change easily, and she likes to hit the ball down the line from both sides. Her weakness is her serve, with a ball toss that sometimes drifts too far to the left. Her movement is also not the quickest, and that can put her in defensive positions given limited reach when drawn out wide.

2001

In 2001, at the beginning of June, aged just fifteen years and four months, she won her first singles title at Bautau, a $10,000 International Tennis Federation ("ITF") tournament, after entering as a wildcard, and crushing highly capable countrywoman Sun Tiantian 6–1 6–4 in the semi-final. In July, she won her second $10,000 tournament of the year (although she was assisted in the final by the retirement of her opponent Liu Nan-Nan after just one game was played, and in the following week's tournament she lost to Liu in the semi-final). Then in October she debuted on the WTA Tour at Shanghai as a wildcard, losing in the first round to Tamarine Tanasugarn.

2002

In February 2002, she won her third $10,000 ITF singles title in the space of nine months at Bombay, defeating Sunitha Rao in the final. The following week, she extended her match-winning streak to twelve by coming through qualifying to reach the final of a $25,000 tournament at New Delhi, with wins over Aiko Nakamura and Sybille Bammer, before losing in the championship match to Eva Birnerová. In July, she succeeded in qualifying for the main draw of a $50,000 tournament at Lexington; but further success proved elusive, and after a second successive first-round main draw defeat in early August she took nearly seven months off from competition at singles events, ending the year world-ranked just 357.

2003

It was not until April 2003 that she next won a match; but then she proceeded to put in her career-best performance, coming through qualifying to win her first $25,000 title at Jackson, with match wins against Rika Fujiwara, Tatiana Golovin and Christina Wheeler among others. After disappointing summer results, she started to play more consistently again towards the end of the year; and in December, she won her first $50,000 event, and the fifth ITF title of her young career, at Changsha, with victories over Yuka Yoshida, Yan Zi (tennis player) and Zheng Jie, salvaging her year-end ranking, which had improved only slightly overall to 326, and heralding her coming breakthrough the following year.

2004

In February 2004, she reached her third $25,000 singles event final at Columbus, Ohio, only to be defeated by future superstar Nicole Vaidišová in the tantalisingly close tournament decider, 6–7 5–7. The following month, she qualified for another $50,000 event, at Orange, California, with wins over Neha Uberoi and Mashona Washington, then defeated Catalina Castano and Camille Pin to reach the main-draw quarter-final, before losing in three sets to Yulia Begelzimer. Among further consistent results in ITF tournaments, she was victorious in what was the first ever $75,000 tournament she had entered, defeating Angela Haynes, Yuka Yoshida and Evgenia Linetskaya in straight sets at Dothan to take her sixth career ITF singles title. A month later, she proved this was no accident by winning her second $75,000 event, fending off some tough competition from Lucie Šafářová and Barbora Strýcová en route to a comfortable final victory over Zuzana Ondrášková.

With the season's excellent results propelling her rapidly upwards in the rankings, she gained direct entry into her first Grand Slam main draw at Wimbledon (though without match-wins to show for it), but narrowly missed the cut at the US Open, losing a close battle in the first round of qualifying to Anastasia Rodionova. But the emerging Chinese star persisted in trying her hand at other WTA Tour events, and worked her way to considerable success at Cincinnati in August, defeating some high-class opponents in Stephanie Foretz, Jill Craybas and Alina Jidkova to reach her first WTA Tour quarter-final, before losing to a Top 20 player, Vera Zvonareva of Russia. A second quarter-final performance followed at Guangzhou in September, after she virtually blew French star Marion Bartoli off the court for the loss of just one game in Round Two, only to be ousted in turn herself by countrywoman Li Ting.

The year ended on a further high note for Peng, as she won her second $50,000 title and "eighth" overall career ITF singles title at Shenzhen 2 in November, with impressive victories over her countrywomen Sun Tiantian and Zheng Jie. (She had also reached the semi-final at Shenzhen 1 the previous week, only to lose to recent Guangzhou champion Li Na.) She ended the year world-ranked 73, after a meteoric rise. It was the first time she had finished in the Women's Tennis Association Top 300, let alone the Top 75; and thereafter she was able to bid the ITF events adieu, focussing solely on WTA draws.

2005

In January 2005, she came through a tough qualifying draw at Sydney comfortably, and went on to reach her first WTA Tour semifinal. On the way, she upset the no. 2 seed Anastasia Myskina in the second round in straight sets, in addition to defeating Camille Pin, Tzipora Obziler, Denisa Chladkova and Mashona Washington, all without dropping a set. In the quarter-final, she was up 6–3 4–2 against Russian star Nadia Petrova, and well on target for another shock straight-sets victory, when Petrova retired. But Alicia Molik was on top form and finally ousted Peng in the semi-final. The following week, at the Australian Open, the Chinese star finally won her first grand slam singles match, defeating Maria Elena Camerin of Italy 6–1 6–2, before being overcome by Venus Williams in Round Two.

An ankle injury in February made her miss several tournaments in February and March. On her return to competition in April, she lost two successive titanic second-round tussles to high-class players, namely Vera Zvonareva and Justine Henin-Hardenne, each match running to three close sets. At Strasbourg in May, she reached another WTA quarter-final, with wins over Tamarine Tanasugarn and brilliant young French talent Tatiana Golovin, before losing in three sets to Marta Domachowska of Poland. At the French Open, she also took Lindsay Davenport into a deciding set in their second-round match.

In August, she topped all her previous achievements by reaching her first WTA Tour Tier I semifinal at San Diego, posting upsets over then World Number 6 Elena Dementieva, World Number 26 Dinara Safina and World Number 7 Kim Clijsters, all in straight sets. Her victory over Kim Clijsters, who was on her way back to being World No. 1 after only a few months back on the tour following injury, ended the Belgian's 26-consecutive-match-winning streak on hard courts. Following the match, Kim told reporters that Peng had the potential to become a top 3 tennis player. Although an inspired Mary Pierce had her way in the semi-final, Peng's outstanding performance in this tournament helped her to her career-best singles ranking (31st) on August 15, 2005, which was also the highest ever singles ranking achieved by any Chinese women's tennis player, improving on the standard set by Li Na, who peaked at 33 earlier the same year (though she may yet ascend to new heights).

By September 2005, Peng ranked among the top 5 female tennis players across the whole Asian continent. That month, she reached two further WTA quarter-finals, at Beijing and (for the second year running) Guangzhou, where she retired in her quarter-final match against teenaged emerging star Viktoria Azarenka after losing the first set by a break. This proved to be her last match of the year; and without being able to defend the points won at Shenzhen the previous November, she found her year-end ranking settling to 35.

2006

The year 2006 began disappointingly for the Chinese twenty-year-old. She lost her first-round ties at Sydney (a tough draw against Ana Ivanović) and the Australian Open, then withdrew from subsequent tournaments with sickness. As of March 4, she was yet to play again; and the loss of her previous year's ranking points at Sydney and the Australian Open had conspired to displace her to 60th in the world rankings, a moderate decline that cannot reasonably be expected to be irreversible, in view of the tremendous promise she has shown. She has since proven this promise in 2006, reaching the semi-finals of a Tier IV tournament in Prague, a final in a Tier III tournament in Strasbourg, third round showing at Wimbledon (including a victory over a top 20 player in Shahar Peer, 6–4 7–6) and finally a successful continuation of her Fed Cup career, winning both her ties against Indonesia.

2007

2007 was slightly more successful for Peng than her previous year as she finished ranked within the world's top 50.

Peng began her year by qualifying for the Sydney tournament and reaching the second round of the Australian Open for the second time, losing a tight match to top ten player Patty Shnyder.

In early February she reached the semi-finals of the Tier 3 Pattaya Open, losing to Sybille Bammer of Austria, she also lost to Bammer in the third round of her next event in Indian Wells.

Peng reached the third round of Tier 1 events in Toronto, Berlin, Indian Wells and Charleston recording a win over the previous year's finalist Patty Schnyder.

Peng was forced to retire from her tightly contested third round match in Berlin against world number 6 Jelena Jankovic and returned to competitive play at Wimbledon, losing in straight sets to qualifier Hana Sromova.

She once again failed to get past the first round of the US Open, losing in three sets to a resurgent Flavia Pennetta.

At the 2007 China Open, Peng beat former World Number 1 and 5 time Grand Slam champion Martina Hingis in the final match of her professional career, winning 7–5, 6–1. Hingis retired 6 weeks later. She also beat 3rd seed Amelie Mauresmo en-route to her second semi-final of the year.

In the autumn Shuai suffered a surprising loss in Tier 3 Guangzhou to Tzipora Obziler and in the qualification tournament for Luxembourg to former top ten player Alicia Molik. She qualified to the main draw of Zurich before losing in three sets to Marion Bartoli.

Shuai finished the year with a 26-21 record in singles, a doubles title in Guangzhou with Yan Zi and one top ten win (against Mauresmo).

2008

On January 4th, 2008 Peng, ranked no.45, beat #1 seed Ana Ivanović of Serbia 6–1, 6–3 in the semi-finals of the silver group (a competition among all first matches losers) of an exhibition tournament in Hong Kong.

This form was not to last as she then failed to win a match in her next six tournaments, including a first round loss at the Australian Open.

Shuai finally recorded her first win of the year at the Tier 2 Bangalore Open against Anne Kremer before losing in three sets to Venus Williams, she also won the doubles title with Sun Tiantian. She then upset 23rd seed Karin Knapp to reach the third round at Indian Wells.

Shuai suffered two surprising losses in singles play against Spain in the Fed Cup Semi-finals losing 6-4 6-4 to Nuria Llagostera Vives and 6-3 7-6(4) to Carla Suarez Navarro. China subsequently lost the tie in front of the home crowd.

At Strasbourg Shuai reached her first quarterfinal of the year and recorded a top ten win when Marion Bartoli was forced to retire in round 1 while trailing 6-1 1-0.

In Grand Slam play Shuai reached the second round of the French Open and the third round of Wimbledon for he second time in her career, losing third round to Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia despite winning more points. She also reached the second round of the US Open for the first in her career, defeating Eleni Daniilidou 6-1 6-0 before losing to eventual quarterfinalist Flavia Pennetta in three sets for the second year in a row.

After the US Open her her ranking climbed up to number 40, her highest since Wimbledon 2007.

Prior to the US Open Shuai reached her first singles final since Strasbourg 2006 at Tier IV Forest Hills Tennis Classic before losing in straight sets to Lucie Safarova.

At the Beijing Olympics Shuai got revenge for Fed Cup by defeating Carla Suarez Navarro in round one before losing to Alize Cornet of France 6-2 6-2.

WTA Tour finals (7)

ingles runner-ups (3)

Doubles runner-ups (1)

Performance timeline

Yellow stands for reaching top-8 (quarterfinalist to finalist), green stands for winning the title. Q means lost in the qualifications for the tournament.

References

External links

*wta|id=160471
*ITF female profile|number=100011008
*FedCupplayerlink|id=100011008