Zheng Jie (born 5 July 1983) is a Chinese former professional tennis player. In May 2009, she achieved a career-high singles ranking of world No. 15.
Zheng is one of China's most successful tennis players. She won four singles titles on the WTA Tour – Hobart in 2005, Estoril, Stockholm in 2006, and Auckland in 2012. She also won 15 career doubles titles, eleven of them with Yan Zi, including Wimbledon and the Australian Open in 2006. She won the bronze medal in doubles with Yan Zi at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Her career-high doubles ranking is world No. 3. Zheng reached the singles semifinals at the 2008 Wimbledon Championships, where she defeated world No. 1, Ana Ivanovic, in the third round, and later went on to become the first Chinese player to advance to the semifinals at a major tournament. She also reached the semifinals of the 2010 Australian Open.
Personal life Zheng graduated from the Sichuan Sports Academy in June 2000.
At Wimbledon in 2008, she gained recognition when she became the first Chinese player ever to reach the semifinals of a Grand Slam singles tournament, defeating then-world No. 1, Ana Ivanovic, en route.Zheng Jie Profile at WTA Tour.com: Career Highlights She donated her winnings to the victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in her native province.
Zheng was coached by Jiang Hong Wei, China's national women's team head coach, but she was later coached by her husband Zhang Yu who was also her hitting partner. They became close during the period after her severe ankle injury. Zheng is on the advisory staff of Yonex and uses their rackets. She was wearing clothing by Anta and appeared in their advertising campaigns, and she is a Rolex testimonee together with Roger Federer and Ana Ivanovic.
Zheng started playing tennis when she was ten, after she had seen her older sister play and thought tennis would be good exercise. At first, it was just for exercise. Zheng was rather small (at 5', 4.5"), and she and her parents were afraid that she would not have a career in the tennis world. (In fact, she was called "xiao bu dier" by her parents, which translates into something along the lines of "small kid." Her stature was no surprise though, for both her parents were short.) They considered her focusing more on her studies, so that if she did not make it in tennis she would be able to get a different job. However, her foreign coach saw potential in her, and told her parents and her something along the lines of, "There are many people in China who read books, but there are few who are national heroes." After that, her parents agreed to allow her to pursue tennis as a profession.
Nearly a year after the Sichuan earthquake that shook her home province, she visited there and brought with her tennis balls and rackets to distribute to the children there.
Zheng keeps in a small vial pieces of her ankle bone that were removed during the ankle surgery of 2007. She says, she keeps it because it is a part of her, and that it makes her cherish being able to play tennis again and life in general. She says that although it made her world ranking plunge, it also made her grow up a lot.
In 2009, Zheng separated from the Chinese Tennis Association (CTA). She talked about how it protected her in times of injury and when she was not playing well, for the CTA would back her completely and give her medical support. Now she manages her own money, which puts her at risk but also means that successes will be more profitable.
In April 2016, Zheng announced on social media that she had given birth to her first child.
Career overview 2002 In May 2002, she won two successive $25k singles tournaments, at Shanghai and Tianjin, right after reaching her first $50k tournament quarterfinal, at Fukuoka, Japan. That September, she gained direct entry into a WTA Tour event in Shanghai and reached round two, before losing to Anna Kournikova. She ended the year as world No. 183. Zheng Jie Profile at WTA Tour.com: Biography
2003 In 2003, she qualified for Hyderabad and took a love set against Mary Pierce in the main-draw first round, only to lose the match in three sets. She also qualified for Doha, but then lost to Lina Krasnoroutskaya.
Later in the year, she defeated Nuria Llagostera Vives in the first round of a $25k tournament, Alona Bondarenko in the first round of qualifying for Palermo, and Maria Elena Camerin at another $50k event in July, where she reached the quarterfinal; but it was in August at the Bronx that she won her first $50k title, beating Shenay Perry, Jamea Jackson, Akiko Morigami, Adriana Serra Zanetti and (in the final) Maria Kirilenko to this end.
Although Kirilenko avenged this defeat in qualifying at the US Open, Zheng proceeded to qualify for Bali in September with victories over Yan Zi and Yuka Yoshida. She then defeated Flavia Pennetta in the first round of the main draw, before bowing out to Tamarine Tanasugarn.
However, the very next month she defeated Tanasugarn at the Japan Open, where she reached her first tour semifinal, before losing to Maria Sharapova.
At the end of October, she reached another WTA Tour quarterfinal at Quebec City with a second-round win over Antonella Serra Zanetti, before losing in three sets to Laura Granville.
In December, she finished runner-up at two successive $50k tournaments, falling in three sets to countrywoman Peng Shuai at Changsha (after victories over Sesil Karatantcheva, Camille Pin and Aiko Nakamura) and, also in three sets, to the same Sesil Karatantcheva (after beating Sun Tiantian in the semifinal) at Shenzhen. Consequently, Zheng broke into the world top 100, with a year-end ranking of 93.
2004 The following year brought further improvements in her singles results. She reached the quarterfinals at Hyderabad and Doha (where she comfortably beat Jelena Dokić in round 2), and the second round at Miami and Vienna (where she beat Lisa Raymond). Then at the French Open, playing only her second Grand Slam singles main draw (after gaining direct entry to the Australian Open but losing in the first round), she defeated Dally Randriantefy, Émilie Loit, and Tathiana Garbin in succession to reach the fourth round, where she lost to Paola Suárez. She was the first Chinese woman to reach the fourth round of a major event.
At the Summer Olympics in Athens, she lost her first-round match to Ai Sugiyama. In September, she won a $25k tournament at Beijing, defeating Yan Zi in the semifinal and Li Na in the final. She later made it to the finals in a $50k tournament in Shenzhen, before losing to Peng Shuai. Zheng ended the year world-ranked 67.
2005
Zheng started 2005 by capturing her first WTA Tour singles title at Hobart, after wins over Mariana Díaz Oliva, Shinobu Asagoe, Klára Koukalová, Li Na and Gisela Dulko.
She qualified for Dubai with wins over Sandra Kleinová, Maria Elena Camerin and Virginia Ruano Pascual, and went on to defeat Anabel Medina Garrigues in the main draw, before succumbing to Lindsay Davenport. Dulko gained her revenge in the quarterfinal at Estoril in April.
But Zheng remained in fine form, and reached her second WTA Tour final at Rabat, Morocco in May, losing to Nuria Llagostera Vives after wins over Catalina Castaño, Maureen Drake and Tathiana Garbin, followed by a walkover against Li Na who had to retire at 3–3 from an ankle sprain.
A three-set loss to Francesca Schiavone in the first round of the French Open prevented Zheng from defending her ranking points accrued there the previous year. In August, she reached the second round at Los Angeles by again beating Shinobu Asagoe, the Canadian Open quarterfinal (with wins over María Emilia Salerni and Ai Sugiyama), and another quarterfinal at New Haven (after defeating Katarina Srebotnik and Émilie Loit in qualifying, and Jamea Jackson in the main draw, though she was assisted by entering the tournament with a first-round bye and as a lucky loser in the final round of qualifying to Jelena Kostanić).
At the end of the month, she advanced to the second round at the US Open by defeating Iveta Benešová. Further first-round wins in September over María Vento-Kabchi (at Bali) and Jelena Janković (at Beijing) could not be consolidated on in subsequent rounds of the respective tournaments; but at Guangzhou, the last tournament she would play all year, she reached the semifinal with wins over Carly Gullickson, Jamea Jackson and Maria Kirilenko, before suffering her second loss of the year to Nuria Llagostera Vives. This string of results lifted her to a career-high world ranking of 42 in early October 2005.
2006: Two major titles in doubles 2006 started poorly for Zheng in singles, with a string of six successive first-round losses dipping her ranking to world No. 56 by the end of February. However, after a first-round loss in Indian Wells, her 2006 singles breakthrough came at Key Biscayne where she reached the quarterfinals with wins over Nathalie Dechy and Anna-Lena Grönefeld before falling to Tatiana Golovin.
Zheng's newfound confidence earned a title at her next tournament in Estoril, where she defeated top-seeded Flavia Pennetta en route to the final before a victory over compatriot Li Na who was forced to retire at one set each. In Strasbourg, Zheng displayed yet reached the quarterfinals where she lost to second-seeded Nicole Vaidišová.
In August, Zheng won the tournament in Stockholm without dropping a set. In the final, she defeated the top seed and former world No. 2, Anastasia Myskina. A knee injury hampered Zheng's singles progress towards the end of 2006. Her US Open ended in a second round defeat by Anastasia Rodionova and her last competitive match of the season saw her worst loss in terms of rankings, where she fell in the second round of Zurich qualifying to world No. 139, Joanna Sacowicz of Poland.
However, in December, Zheng took part in the Asian Games in Doha. After a surprising first-round loss in the team event, she went into the singles competition as the second seed. She ended up winning the gold medal, with victories over Shikha Uberoi, Chan Yung-jan, Aiko Nakamura, and Sania Mirza. She also took gold in doubles with partner Yan Zi, defeating Chan Yung-jan and Chuang Chia-jung of Taiwan. To end 2006, Zheng won the Chinese National Championships, with a three-set victory over her doubles partner in the final.
2007 Season started well when Zheng reached a second Hobart quarterfinal, before losing to eventual champion Anna Chakvetadze.
At the Australian Open, Zheng put in an extremely disappointing performance, losing to then 97th ranked Julia Schruff of Germany, after holding match point on more than one occasion.The WTA Tour since 1996: Jie Zheng tournament activity in 2007 In doubles, her title defense with Yan Zi ended in the semifinals with a defeat by Chan Yung-jan and Chuang Chia-jung – the same partnership which they managed to defeat in the final of the Doha Asian Games just one month previously.
Zheng competed in both the singles and doubles (with Yan Zi) of the French Open. At the beginning of the tournament, she sustained an ankle injury, hampering her performance. She was knocked out in the first round of the singles competition by Timea Bacsinszky, and also lost in the first round in the doubles portion.
The ankle injury sustained at the French Open ruled her out of Wimbledon Championships to defend her doubles title. She withdrew from all events for the rest of the year because of the ankle injury. Her ranking suffered as a result, ending the year ranked world No. 163.
2008: Wimbledon semifinal