Heart and soul drive Peng to breakthrough
Chinese star says she does not want to be compared to compatriot Li
Peng Shuai’s soft- spoken demeanour hides a steely resolve that has seen the surprise US Open semi- finalist through some rocky stretches on the road to tennis success.
In her 37th Grand Slam singles appearance, the 28- yearold Peng has at last made it past the fourth round, and will battle tomorrow for a place in the US Open final.
She’s just the third Chinese player to reach the final four of a major, following in the footsteps of two- time Grand Slam winner Li Na and double semifinalist Zheng Jie.
Her success has sparked inevitable comparisons to Li that Peng smilingly does what she can to discourage.
“She’s one of the really good tennis players because she has a lot of big wins. But everybody is different,” said Peng. “She is she and I amme.”
Certainly Peng’s earnest remarks, delivered in a genial voice barely above a whisper, could never be confused with the sly wit that has helped make Li a sponsors’ darling.
Although Peng admitted this week that she felt more pressure of Chinese expectations with Li absent from the Open with a knee injury, she said that didn’t mean she was content to toil in her colleague’s shadow.
“I never feel like I was in her shadow, because I love to play. That’s why I continue.”
However, Peng’s tennis dream nearly ended when she was 12, when doctors told her a congenital heart defect meant she’d have to quit the sport she’d come to love since she first picked up a racket four years earlier.
Surgery — at the youngster’s insistence— solved the problem and after a year to recover she was pursuing her goals again.