Cho, Yoon-Jung Made to Semifinal, “I Feel Good for a New Year”

`A girl born in a year of sheep` Cho, Yoon-Jung (24. Samsung Securities) started the `Year of Sheep` pleasantly.

The star of Korean women`s tennis Cho, Yoon-Jung made a brilliant achievement to have reached the single`s semifinal of the WTA season opener, the ASB Bank Classic held in Oakland, New Zealand on the 2nd.

The 83rd player of the world Cho, Yoon-Jung won the full set match against the new star of Russia, the 45th player of the world, Bera Zvonareva (18) at the quarterfinal with a score of 2-1 (7-6, 1-6, 6-3).

She reached the semifinal in 2 month since the Volvo Women`s Open of last November, in which she was the runner-up. However, the Volvo Open was the last tournament of the season, so many strong players missed it and the total prize money was the lowest with 110,000 dollars. On the other hand, in this tournament, which is the skirmish of the first major of the season, the Australia Open, 13 out of 32 participating players are within 50 of the world ranking, and the total prize money is 140,000 dollars.

Cho, Yoon-Jung, who created a disturbance by defeating last year`s French Open finalist Clarisa Fernandez (Argentine, 31st in the world) by 2-0 on New Year`s day, notified an extraordinary thing by winning the first set after a tiebreak. She gave up the 2nd set easily with a score of 1-6, but she finished the match with stable strokes and bold net plays in the third set.

Cho, Yoon-Jung said, “I participated this tournament to regain my game senses and to prepare the Australian Open,” and “I saw some results of intensive weight training and net play training during the winter practice.”

Cho, Yoon-Jung will play for the final against the defending champion and the top-seeded player (16th in the world) Anna Pistolesi (Israel). Cho, Yoon-Jung explains that Pistolesi, who changed her name to Smashnova after getting married on last December, is short with 1m57, but she uses sharp stroke and is good at topspin. Cho, Yoon-Jung played against Pistolesi once at the Polo Open held in Shanghai, China last 9th and was defeated by 0-2, so she is pledging revenge.

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com