Peng Shuai is a Chinese professional tennis player who is adept at both the singles and the doubles formats of the sport having been rated as high as world number 14 in singles in August 2011 and as high as world number 1 in doubles in February 2014, as per the official WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) rankings. At Grand Slam tournaments, in the singles format, she has reached the semi-final of the US Open (2014) as well as the 4th round of both the Australian Open (2011, 2015) and Wimbledon (2011, 2012, 2014). In the doubles format, she had won the French Open in 2014 and Wimbledon in 2013. She had also reached the final of the Australian Open in 2017 and the semi-final of the US Open in 2017. As of November 2021, she had won 2 singles and 23 doubles titles on the WTA Tour. In 2013, she had won the doubles event of the WTA Tour Finals, an annual year-ending tournament of the WTA uniquely reserved for players at the top of the WTA rankings. Representing China, at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, she had won the ‘Gold’ medal in the team and the singles events and the ‘Bronze’ medal in the doubles event.
Born Name
Peng Shuai
Nick Name
Peng
Sun Sign
Capricorn
Born Place
Xiangtan, Hunan, China
Residence
She splits her time between Tianjin, Hexi District, China, and Beijing, China.
She had started playing tennis when she was 8 years old after she had been introduced to the sport by an uncle who was a renowned tennis coach and the only relative of hers who had ever played tennis.
When she was 13 years old, she had undergone surgery to repair a defect in her heart. Years later, she had recounted this experience in the ‘Impossible is Nothing’ advertisement campaign for Adidas.
In February 2014, when she had been ranked number one in the world in the doubles format in the official WTA rankings, she had become the first Chinese tennis player (male or female, and in singles or doubles) to become the world’s number one ranked player.
At the 2014 US Open, when she had reached the semi-final of the singles event, she had become just the 3rd Chinese tennis player in history to reach the singles semi-final of a Grand Slam tournament after Zheng Jie and Li Na. As of November 2021, this was her best performance in the singles event of a Grand Slam tournament.
She sports an image of a cow on her tennis bag which she considers a lucky mascot for her as she was born in the year of the ‘Ox’ (the 2nd of the 12-year periodic sequence of animals that appear in the Chinese zodiac and calendar systems).