Jie Zheng (currently ranks No. 133), born in Cheng Du, China beat the top player of women’s tennis Ana Ivanovic (currently ranks No. 1) reaching the semifinals for the Wimbledon tomorrow against Serena Williams, two-time winner of Wimbledon. Zheng is the first Chinese woman to ever reach the semifinals and never before having beaten a top 10 player. This is will certainly look well for the upcoming Olympic games this year.
It is not often seen that many Asian athletes reach a level of recognition and 1st prize wins. Golf and baseball are the major sports where you see Asians participating; take all-time famous Seri Park (golf player), although not as popular nowadays, younger players are rising above and beyond like Michelle Wie, an 18 year old, 6 ft 1 in turning pro at age 15 and until 2006 being the youngest player at age 10 on 2000 to qualify for the Women’s US Amateur Public Links Championship. You may also recognize her as the fourth woman or the crazy Korean girl who tried to qualify for the PGA tour with male opponents, which in fact she was one stroke short on qualifying. Wie was also the youngest player at the age of 12 to qualify for the LPGA event, but failed the cut.
How do these young players affect the professionalism in these respected sports? Michelle Wie has definitely shown her childish behavior in a tournament she has attended. When she does well, she stays, if she feels she won’t make the cut having over 20 strokes from par, she leaves an excuse and leaves the premises.
Attracting a younger market as is the case of Michelle Wie or as was Tiger Woods, influenced a new generation of children to become professional athletes every year becoming younger and younger and breaking another world record. Are professional athletes becoming the new Hollywood children?
You see Asian players born, raised, trained in their home country or you may also see players that look Asian but were born, raised, and trained in a foreign country, where values, beliefs, and attitudes are different. Being traditional and conservative or individual and liberal are qualities of personality that are affecting behaviors of these professional young athletes.
You can tell all these qualities when it comes to interviews, or even face expressions, how they handle the crowd, their fans. Some Asians raise their hand for “thank you,” others throw the ball to the crowd or smile and laugh with them. How they handle the bad shot they took with their swing, some give a grin in their face, some throw their club, some smash their club on the grass, some just let it go and just smile at their mistake.
Personally, I am not a professional psychologist who can read face expressions, it is just the “excuse” you put out with your body on to the television that makes you who you are. Some leave the tournament; some massage their wrist like it wasn’t their fault. Haven’t you seen sports that are played individually where they show certain behaviors and emotions that you know it is some kind of excuse? In my case, the US Open for golf, I know Tiger Woods had couple of knee surgeries before and was still recuperating, but I only saw his grin with the whole knee hurting only after he would swing and the ball would not be as good as he expected and all the good shots, he didn’t complain. Hey, but that’s just me.
