Chinese women's tennis players finished an injury-hit but glorious 2008 season with three breaking into the world top 40 in the current WTA standings.

Chinese No 1 Li Na jumped four places to No 23 in the table, followed by Wimbledon semifinalist Zheng Jie who dropped two places to 25th. Meanwhile Peng Shuai moved up one to 39.

The trio have already completed their season schedules and will not take part in any more tournaments over the next two months. If they hold steady until the end of the year it will be the first time that three Chinese women have secured their place within the world top 40 at the season's end.

"China's women's tennis has grown into a significant emerging world power following the example set by Russia," said head coach Jiang Hongwei during an annual national tennis conference in Nanjing over the weekend. During the conference he summed up the country's tennis achievements over the past four years in front of hundreds of tennis officials and coaches.

Li is the best example of China's growing success story. The 26-year-old Hubei native made a stellar return from a six-month injury lay-off in January, winning her second career title on Australia's Gold Coast by beating three top-20 players.

But she soon fell victim to injury again and had to undergo surgery on her right knee in March, meaning that she missed the next three months of the season.

While few people believed that Wimbledon quarterfinalist Li could bounce back in time for the Beijing Games in August, she made an historic advance to the semifinals by seeing off No 3 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia and No 7 seed American Venus Williams.

Li went on to defeat Serena Williams en route to reaching the quarterfinals at Stuttgart to become only the second Chinese player to beat a reigning world No 1 (a feat Zheng recorded earlier at Wimbledon).

Although she is still far from her career-best ranking - she rose to No 16 in January 2007 - Li has a lot to be proud of considering her abbreviated season that only adds up to 16 tournaments. Among the world's top 30 players, only the Williams' sisters and Maria Sharapova attended fewer tournaments this year.

For Zheng, a number of injuries, a solid performance at the Olympics, and victories over the world's finest also serve as the highlights of her short but historic 2008 season that has seen her hit a career-high position of world No 23.

The 25-year-old Sichuan native was sidelined for half of last year with an ankle injury then became the first Chinese ever to reach a Grand Slam singles semifinals with her record-breaking performance at Wimbledon. Despite going in as a wildcard ranked a lowly world No 133, she duly dispatched top seed and then world No 1 Serb Ana Ivanovic and other high seeds to go where no other Chinese had gone before.

Zheng's straight-set victory over Ivanovic was the first time a Chinese had beaten a top 10-ranked player and her defeat of the Serbian was the biggest upset of a world No 1 since Belgium's Kim Clijsters defeated Lindsay Davenport of the United States in the 2005 Indian Wells final.

Two months later, she partnered Yan Zi to win a bronze medal in the women's doubles at the Beijing Olympics and made it to the third round in the singles tournament.

Zheng continued her amazing form in the following China Open by defeating Ivanovic again en route to the semifinals.

In contrast, Peng notched up a lackluster but consistent season that saw her finish runner-up at both Forest Hills and Guangzhou and add two more two doubles titles to her belt.

However, injuries continue to haunt Chinese players. Li is expected to travel to Germany soon for medical treatment while Zheng has withdrawn from the ongoing Mercedes-Benz China Tennis Grand Prix in Nanjing due to a nagging shoulder injury.

"It hurts when I serve the ball," said Zheng, who still traveled to Nanjing to promote the tournament. "I want to take part in Nanjing but the doctor gave that idea a firm 'no'."

(China Daily October 29, 2008)