Zheng zooms into record books

Zheng Jie became the first wild card to reach a semi-final of the ladies' singles and the first Chinese woman in the last four of a Grand Slam semi-final as she beat 18th seed Nicole Vaidisova 6-2, 5-7, 6-1.

Zheng, who is ranked 133 in the world and has beaten three seeds already, included top seed Ana Ivanovic, will play Serena Williams in the semi-finals.

Vaidisova was higher ranked and with a bigger reputation but the 19-year-old has not been playing her best tennis for much of this year and was clearly vulnerable to attack. And Zheng made the best of this.

She broke Vaidisova’s first serve and never looked back in the first set. An extra gear gave Zheng a fearsomely fast forehand which she used tactically.

Having built two break points, it was Vaidisova who gifted her a game with a double fault. Sadly, she did the same a little later, which reflected the Czech’s tentative approach and lack of confidence in the first set.

The second set was more evenly fought. Vaidisova worked a break in the fifth game of with a forehand drive that gently grazed the baseline. But the advantage was short-lived as the strength and accuracy of the teenager’s forehand was too often notable for its absence. Soon enough, and sure enough, Vaidisova found herself serving at 4-5 to stay in the match.

But she held on and it was an unforced error by Zheng which gave Vaidisova a chance to take the send the match into a third set. A stunning Zheng double-handed backhand, straight as an arrow, to the forehand baseline gave her break point for the tie-break.

She did a little pirouette of angst behind the baseline when she failed to capitalise on the break and gave the set to the Czech. This was the first set 24-year-old from China had lost in the Championships.

Zheng, though, was undeterred. She got on with the job at hand with quiet focus. The quickest of fist-clenches, with the tiniest of pumps, was as emotive as the Chinese woman got, both to congratulate herself and to gee herself up.

The third set became a little untidy as Vaidisova’s timing tumbled, leaving her to turn to her bench with a shrug of the shoulders and a shake of the head. So it was no great surprise when Zheng broke in the fourth game.

The teenager was clearly out of sorts, and Zheng could taste victory in the air of No.1 Court. Unforced error followed by unforced error gave Zheng a 5-1 lead and the serve for the match.