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Asian tennis players have had some considerable amount of success recently in tennis, in men’s and women’s tennis. Kei Nishikori was the first Asian to have ever reached a Grand Slam final. Sania Mirza made history for her country as she won the WTA Tour Finals with Cara Black in Women’s doubles. Asia is yet to produce a grand slam champion. But it looks like the time may be nearing for that to happen. Here is a list of the top 5 Asian Tennis Players.Note : Retired players have not been taken into consideration
#5 Sania Mirza
Sania Mirza is one of Asia’s best, and India’s best women’s tennis player. She has recently had a lot of success in Women’s doubles as well as mixed doubles.
Sania started off as a singles player and had a decent run. She won one WTA title in the form of the Hyderabad Open, and her best result at a Grand Slam was reaching the U.S Open 4th round in 2005. She broke into the top 30 in 2006 and she was the first Indian woman to ever do so.
She was faced with a lot of injuries in 2008-09 which made her shift to doubles. People started writing her off and said she would never get any success. But she proved them wrong as she has had significant success in doubles and mixed doubles, winning 3 Grand Slam titles in mixed doubles, and recently winning the WTA Tour Finals with her partner Cara Black in Singapore. She is yet to win a Grand Slam in women’s doubles. But she has come close, reaching the finals of the French Open and the semifinals of the other 3 slams.
She is currently ranked no. 3 in the world in doubles. She became the first Indian to win the tour ending championship earlier this month in Singapore.
#4 Denis Istomin
This big Uzbek tennis player has produced a lot of good results over the years on the court.
His ranking is not too great, and he does not have many titles to his name. But let's not discount the fact that Istomin is a talented player,and has had some good results over the years.
He has shown a lot of promise and often has caused upsets, but has never been able to go all the way. He has always been stopped by one of the top ranked players in the tournaments he plays in. He has had some success in doubles too, where he has won two ATP titles with Mikhail Elgin and Nikolay Davydenko respectively.
He is currently ranked 56 in singles and 79 in doubles.
#3 Zheng Jie
Zheng Jie has also enjoyed significant success, both in singles and doubles over the years.
She has won four WTA singles titles – Hobart in 2005, Estoril, Stockholm in 2006, and Auckland in 2012. She has also won fifteen doubles titles, eleven of them with Yan Zi including Wimbledon and the Australian Open in 2006.
She also won the bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics in doubles. Her best performance in singles was reaching the semi-finals of Wimbledon, defeating World No. 1, Ana Ivanovic, in the process, becoming the first Chinese female player to advance to the semifinals at a Grand Slam. She also reached the semifinals of the Australian Open.
She is not the strongest player, but makes up for this with her superb shot placement and willingness to change game plans if a strategy is not working.
She is currently ranked 91 in singles and 28 in doubles.
#2 Peng Shuai
Peng Shuai is one of the few players in the world who is doing well, both at the singles and doubles level. She reached a career-high ranking of World No. 1 in doubles by the WTA on 17 February 2014, making her the first Chinese professional tennis player (male or female, and in singles or doubles) to reach World No. 1.
Her best result in her singles career came two months ago, at the U.S Open where she reached the semi-finals of the tournament losing to Caroline Wozniacki. She was forced to retire in that match. She has won 2 Grand Slam doubles titles, Wimbledon in 2013 and the French Open this year with her partner Hsieh Su-wei. She also won the WTA tour finals last year and reached the finals this year, eventually losing to fellow Asian Sania Mirza.
Peng utilises her double-handed play style to create flat groundstrokes with which she can catch her opponents off-guard. She also employs a decent serve and good net skills
She is currently ranked 22 in singles and 3 in doubles in the world.
#1 Kei Nishikori
Kei Nishikori is the best male tennis player Japan has ever seen, and arguably the best Asian tennis player ever. He became the first Asian to have reached the final of a Grand Slam – U.S Open 2014, where he eventually lost to Marin Cilic in straight sets.
Nishikori did not impress at the juniors level, but this has not been the case at the senior stage, where he has won 7 ATP titles. He won his first ATP title at the tender age of 18 where he upset the likes of Florian Mayer, Sam Querrey and James Blake to win the Delray Beach Tournament. The only problem Nishikori has constantly faced in his career is injuries. His body has repeatedly broken down, and he has had to pull out of a lot of tournaments because of his injury problems.
He broke a lot of records at the Asian level. He was the first Japenese man to ever reach a masters 1000 final as well – The Mutua Madrid Open 2014, where he had to retire against Rafael Nadal owing to an injury.
According to former Japanese professional Shuzo Matsuoka, who has been closely following Nishikori for the past 13 years, this is the great Asian hope. "He has the touch of a genius, great imagination," he said. "He has shots in his locker you just can't teach. Breaking into the top 10 is just the start."
