Doubles tennis star has an ace up her repertoire
Updated: 2008-02-27 08:51
Yan Zi, one of China's most successful doubles tennis players, says the secret to a good partnership is communication.
The 14 WTA doubles titles she has won prove she is a savvy communicator, skills that will serve her well in fulfilling her duties as a new member of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, whose annual session starts on March 3.
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The tennis star is among 22 athletes out of 2,237 members recently named to the advisory body. It is an honor for the 23-year-old, even though her busy schedule likely will not allow her to attend the two-week meeting in Beijing.
Yan's top priority, after all, is to win matches, and she is winning more and more of them. After making it to the third round of the WTA Qatar Open in Doha last week, she found herself ranked No 55 in the WTA tour, the highest singles ranking of her career.
It came three weeks after she teamed with her most trusted doubles mate and longtime friend Zheng Jie to lead China into the Fed Cup semifinals in a thrilling doubles rubber win over France. China's best doubles pair will also team up this summer at the Beijing Olympic Games.
Yan said it is time spent playing beside Zheng that has taught her the nuances of communication.
"Sometimes we may have small fights but they don't last long because we can always sit down and work out a solution," she said in a recent interview with China Daily at the Beijing International Tennis Center before a practice session. "We are good partners and also very good friends."
The two have played together since childhood and 11 of Yan's 14 WTA doubles titles came sharing the court with Zheng. The two were ranked as high at No 4 in 2006 but an ankle injury sidelined Zheng for six months in 2007, forcing Yan to team up with partners she was not as used to.
But Yan adapted well to her new partners and managed to finish 2007 with a trio of Tier III doubles titles. Still, she is glad to be back with her old friend.
"I feel I can count on her," she said. "I always feel she can deal with those difficult shots. That makes the difference and makes me feel comfortable."
Yan seems to excel when she feels comfortable, and other than Zheng no one has made her feel more comfortable than national team coach Jiang Hongwei.
"He is very nice and easy to talk to," Yan said about Jiang. "He can be tough sometimes, but he understands you and manages the team in a humane way. He is better than most of my other coaches."
An approachable coach is clearly important to Yan's success. She said table tennis was her first love, but she ended up quitting because her coach was too hard to talk to. The Chinese Tennis Association is no doubt pleased she decided to later pick up a racket.
The rest of the world is pleased too. Like other Chinese women who have asserted themselves in world tennis, Yan is a much sought-after mixed doubles partner.
She said Serb Nenad Zimonjic originally asked to team with her at the Australian Open last month, but she had already agreed to play with Mark Knowles of the Bahamas. Zimonjic ended up pairing with Yan's national teammate Sun Tiantian to win the title, beating Yan and Knowles in the semis, but Yan says it's just proof of how far she and her teammates have come.
"Other players like to ask Chinese girls to be their partners because they think we are good," she said with a giggle. "When we were ranked at 100-something in the world a couple of years ago, few top player were willing to play with us."
Although it's not always easy for Yan to communicate with her foreign partners off the court, there are few problems with their on-court exchanges. Yan said she spends most of her pre-game prep time sitting quietly at her locker listening to one of her seven iPods, but other times she and her partners share in one of the easiest forms of communication in the world.
"We like to make jokes and laugh," she said.
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