Home players at China Open have been poured cold water on as only the historic Olympic gold winning pair Sun Tiantian and Li Ting survived in four matches involving Chinese out of total five on day five schedule of the WTA hard court tournament.
History-maker Peng Shuai, the first ever Chinese making quarters at the secondary China Open with a second round victory on Wednesday, became the first sacrifice in the faded China Day, and then the teenage duo Liu Wanting and Sun Shengnan let their chance go in ease at a doubles quarterfinal clash, which was followed by giant-killer Sun Tiantian's singles lose late on Friday evening.
As all Chinese suffered, top seed Maria Sharapova beat the 39th-ranked Shinobu Asagoe of Japan 6-4, 6-1 in breeze to make an easy through to the singles semi-finals, while the third-seed American Venus Williams announced her withdrawal just more than an hour ahead of her quarter-final showdown against Poland's Marta Domachowska.
The world No. 7 Venus has cited an excuse of left knee pain which halted her Thursday's 6-3, 6-1 win over unseeded Spaniard Nuria Llagostera Vives. But WTA officials confirmed to Xinhua that the injury bothering the five-time grand slam title holder is nothing to do with sprain or ligament, "Just pain."
Olympic women's doubles champions Sun and Li became the only Chinese saving some credit for the hosts, stumbling to outlast Vera Douchevina from Russia and Natalie Grandin of South Africa 6-1, 7-6(5), 6-2 for the doubles semi-finals, where unseeded Chinese duo Yan Zi and Zheng Jie will play Corina Morariu of the United States and Flavia Pennetta of Italy on Saturday.
Being broken thrice in the opening set, Li and Sun, whose strong play in Athens claimed a historic Olympic gold medal for China 13 months ago, were taken more than two hours to claim the late coming victory.
Trailing 3-1 in the second set, Sun served the fifth game and played a winner against Grandin's return to break the opponents for the first time into the match and to narrow the deficit to 3-2.
Sun, whose giant-killing run in singles was snapped by Russian sensation Maria Kirilenko after losing 6-1, 6-3 on Friday, again played the ball with shifting directions to force tie breaker when being down 6-5 after leveling the games of second set for three times, and won it in luck as Grandin double-faulted to succumb to 7-5.
Launching a strongly comeback in the decider, Sun and Li forced an error from the opponent to win the set 6-2 after breaking them for three times.
Early in the first match on day five schedule, Peng Shuai, highest ranked Chinese woman in the world currently, fell out of the tournament after a quarterfinal action against Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany in straight sets 7-5, 6-1 on Friday.
The 19-year-old once led the first set 5-4 but gave in the next three games to end the set by 7-5. And in a lop-sided second set, Peng easily threw in the towel at 6-1.
"I feel a little bit nervous in the first set and didn't grab my chances when leading at 5-4," Peng said, "this is my first time to get into the main draw at the China Open, so to be in the quarters is already a good result."
As No. 33 in the world, Peng's exit left China's only hope of winning singles title to Olympic doubles champion Sun Tiantian, who stunned 9th ranked Serena Williams in the second round and will take on Russia's Maria Kirilenko later on Friday.
Peng's loss rewrote her win-loss record of 2005 as 22-15 and that of her career 132-56, while for 30th world ranked Groenefeld 33-21 and 134-79 respectively.
Groenefeld tipped Peng as a very good player and said that many Chinese tennis talents were coming up.
"I have to keep the ball deep on the court and go for every chance," she said.
(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2005)
