Yang,the next big thing from China

But there’s another reason why 16-year old Yang is grabbing all the attention —she is hailed as next Li Na back home. Cheng Guan Lin — China’s national coach for 35 years and now Yang’s personal coach after retirement — compares Yang’s court movements,tactics,skill set and aggression to exactly like that of Li when she was 16 years old.

Lin has coached Na Li for two seasons when he was a coach at the National Tennis Centre in Beijing and touts Yang to be the next best thing for Chinese tennis. “She copies Li Na’s aggression and her style,her game is very good. With more hard work,she can be one of the best in the world as a professional,” he says after much translation.

Yang’s compatriot Sirui He adds weight to the theory. “Yang is already very popular on the tennis circuit in China,” she says. Though Yang started playing tennis because she was a weak,frail child and needed to improve her fitness,her talent was spotted by the federation and for the last four years she has been a resident of Beijing’s national tennis academy. She even got wild cards last year as a 15-year-old for the qualifying rounds at $100,000 and $75,000 tournaments in China where the world’s top professionals play.

In the last two weeks,Yang has shown amazing on-court maturity and talent. Most of her groundstrokes have been winners,with the opponent not even having enough time to stir,let alone reach for the ball. And while most juniors are still honing and developing their serve,she has been hitting aces with consistency and regularity.

Speaking English is not one of Yang’s achievements or immediate aim but ask her about her targets and she just signals ‘higher and higher’ — without doubt,with her current form,going up in rankings is inevitable.

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1-Keren Shlomo bt Sowjanya Bavisetti 6-3 7-5,Eun-Ju Kim bt Prerna Thombare 6-4 6-0,Garima Vatwani bt Nupur Kaul 1-6 6-4 6-1,Ratnika Batra bt 4-Ashwarya Srivastava 5-7 6-0 6-3,Nidhi Chilumula beat Lauren Breadmore 7-5 4-6 6-1,Nehel Sahni bt Tegan Edwards 6-4 6-2,Rutuja Bhosale bt Eetee Maheta 6-3 6-2,Patricia Haas bt 2-Rushmi Chakravarthi 6-0 6-1,Desiree Bastianon bt 3-Nadia Abdala 6-4 7-5.