The dream of winning an Olympic gold in Beijing in three years time has fuelled the growing number of Chinese women tennis stars, French Open competitor Peng Shuai believes.
Li Ting and Sun Tiantian won the women's Olympic tennis doubles gold medal for China in Athens and this has helped raise the profile of the game, says 19-year-old Peng, who fell in the second round of the French Open on Wednesday to top seeded American Lindsay Davenport.
"Now tennis in China is very popular after the Olympic doubles gold, many people have become interested and want to do the same," said the player who trains in Florida.
While women's tennis is booming the men's sport is trailing.
"China have a lot of boys playing but it seems to be slower to come through," she added.
Competing in her first French Open main draw Peng ranked 43rd pushed world No 1 Davenport before falling 3-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-0 in 1hr 37min.
Peng had been bidding to follow in the footsteps of Zheng Jie, who last year became the first Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam fourth round.
Zheng fell in the first round this year.
And Peng admitted she herself had succumbed to nerves, while serving for the match in the tenth game of the second set.
"In the second set when I was serving at 5-4 and I was 30-15 up I was thinking "if it goes down the line I have two match points". She is the number one seed and I had this chance.
"Afterwards I kept thinking about this point, even in the tie-break. Lindsay is a very good player, and she got some really good points in the tie-break, and maybe I got a little tired.
"This is only my second Grand Slam and first here in the main draw," said the player from Hunan, who also reached the second round this year in the Australian Open.
Davenport was impressed by her Chinese opponent.
"The first step in tennis is to be able to hit winners and step in the court and she's able to do that.
"So I'm sure she'll get better as she gets older," added the 1998 US Open, 1999 Wimbledon, 2000 Australian Open winner.
(China Daily May 27, 2005)
