Top Asian Tennis Players: Li, Zheng, Hsieh leading the Charge

The WTA tennis rankings top 100 has its share of Asian tennis players - not as much as it should be, but eight players from Asia in the top 100 is significant. This elite group of Asian tennis players is led by Li Na who scored a historic first when she won the 2011 French Open - the first ever Grand Slam singles title won by any Asian tennis player, male of female. Since then, Li went on a downward slump failing to win three straight matches for the rest of the 2011 season. She has rebounded earlier in the year by reaching the Sydney 2012 finals and beating #2 Petra Kvitova along the way, but she failed to defend her Australian Open ranking points as she lost to in three sets in the fourth round. Here's hoping that Li will bounce back strong in the Miami and Indian Wells tournaments this March as the surface should fit her game.

Behind Li are two other Chinese players in the top 35. Peng Shuai and Zheng Jie are ranked #19 and #33 respectively. Peng has a dismal 4-5 record this season and has so far failed to reach a single tournament quarterfinal. She did beat #7 Marion Bartoli in Dubai in February but in comparison to last year where she already reached four tournament quarterfinals in two months, she has a bit of catching up to do. Zheng on the other hand started very well this season by winning the Auckland tournament and beating then #9 Bartoli to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open. She's in a slump right now having lost three straight first round matches - the most troubling was a straight set loss to Tunisian wildcard and #1169-ranked Ons Jabeur in Dubai.

The other Asian players in the top 100 are Ksenia Pervak (#40) and Galina Voskoboeva (#50) of Kazakhstan; Ayumi Morita (#70) and Kimiko Date-Krumm (#73) of Japan, and Tamarine Tanasugarn (#85) of Thailand. Of this group, 22-year old Morita and 21-year old Pervak are the youngest. Pervak had a breakthrough 2011 season where she won her first WTA title at Tashkent and finished in the top 50 in the year-end rankings. She was runner-up at Baku, a semifinalist at Bad Gastein and reached the quarterfinals at at Memphis and Monterrey. Her year's highlight was reaching the fourth round of Wimbledon. Like Pervak, Morita first reached the top 50 in 2011. She reached the quarterfinals stage four times at Kuala Lumpur, Brussels, Stanford and Osaka. She reached the third round of the Australian Open and scored a straight set victory over #17 and former world #1 Ana Ivanovic. This year however, she has fallen in the first round of her first three tournaments.

Veterans Date-Krumm (age 42) and Tanasugarn (age 35) are out there playing for fun and sometimes causing occasional upsets. Date-Krumm beat Maria Kirilenko at the S-HERTOGENBOSCH tournament in June while Tanasugarn beat Petra Cetkovska in Tokyo. However, these veterans are not expected to fly the tennis colors for the continent of Asia as they're both obviously playing past their prime. However, another veteran ranked outside the top 100 is making waves early this season.

26-year old Su-Wei Hsieh of Taiwan has just recently reached her first WTA tour final in Kuala Lumpur and as of this writing, still has a chance to win the title if she beats the winner of the semifinal between #14 Jelena Jankovic and # 66 Petra Martic. Earlier this year, Hsieh reached the semifinals of the Pattaya tournament as a qualifier where she fell to eventual champion Daniela Hantuchova. Hsieh's best season so far was in 2008 where she achieved her career high ranking of #75 and reached the fourth round of the Australian Open. With the way she's been playing recently, it is not impossible for Hsieh to enter the top 50 for the first time in her career. All the best to the Asian tennis players in the WTA this year!