Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Zheng Jie (郑洁/鄭潔)

Originally posted on xanga.

Congrats to Zheng Jie for being the first Chinese woman tennis player to reach the semis of a Grand Slam. Zheng Jie's journey has garnered many headlines since she dispatched Ana Ivanovic, the world No.1 and the No.1 seed at Wimbledon.

In a true act of charity, Zheng Jie has annouced that she will donate all her winnings from Wimbledon to a disaster relief fund for the earthquake's in China. Which devasted her home province of Szechuan, China.

Good luck to Zheng Jie in the semis against Serena Williams.

As I've been reading the articles about her recently, I couldn't help but notice how racist some of them were. My hometown newspaper, LA Times had an article listing Zheng Jie as "exotic". Boston.com (The Boston Globe) noted that her name is unpronounceable!

Los Angeles and Boston! What is up?! 2 cities with major Asian presence!

UPDATE (7/3/2008) - Zheng Jie lost in straight sets in the semis against Serena Williams. Thanks for the great run Zheng Jie.

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