Talking Balls: A Tennis Champ, A Racist Chump & Lots of Sports News

Happy New Year! That’s for the last one, not the upcoming one. Our gift to you includes links to the first two “Who’s Hot and Who’s Not In Chinese Sport” columns of the year from China Daily. It’s the same as ever, apart from the fact they no longer separate out the "Who's Hot" from the “Who’s Not.” How will we know which sports stars are worthy of our ire if we have to read all the way through?
Anyway, here are the first and second. The latest features Top Gear racist Jeremy Clarkson offending another nation.

Yi Jianlian recently left the CBA to return to the NBA. You probably missed him on the TV, though, as he was in the D-League. Was is the operative word, as his brief spell in the Mavericks reserves has got him a call up to the big show. Now that he’s on the champions’ roster, that makes four NBA teams in five seasons.

That story ties together China Sports Today’s article that points out one more thing that’s bigger in Texas – the number of Chinese basketballers that have played in the state. Maybe that’s why this year’s remake of Red Dawn changed the Chinese invaders to North Korean. No one wants to make a trigger-happy cowboy jumpy.

In CBA news, Starbury has dropped another diary entry into the China Daily basket. This insightful installment dwells on the differences on the NBA and the CBA. Differences such as: “Foreign players are only allowed to play three quarters of a game. I usually sit out the entire second quarter.” Check it all out – childhood tales and all – here. Since winning 13 on the bounce, Stephon’s Ducks have lost three in a row.

NiuBBall says that Starbury was second in the running for the CBA All-Star Game vote. Only J.R. Smith (with over 100,000) was a little ahead. The balling blog also highlights Yao Ming chatting vintages and varietals with Wine Spectator and the incredible fact that (and this is a tenuous China link) former Bob Donewald charge Jamal Mashburn is thinking of buying the New Orleans Hornets. He can finance the takeover through his ownership of 37 Papa John’s pizza shops, 30 Outback Steakhouse restaurants, two car dealerships and a real estate company. Maybe Jamal should just expand his empire to China, where we were sad to see the back of Outback.

China Daily has an in-depth page on China’s current battle to deal with football corruption. The highlight of this is Fan Zhiyi’s claim that he is “arguably the most innocent footballer ever in China.”

Not all that innocent, but in no way related to corruption, are the reports linking Chelsea’s Didier Drogba to the CSL. Rumors of a RMB 4 million per week deal at Guangzhou Evergrande were scotched by the Chinese champions but it’s been suggested that the origin of these rumors was the mischievous Shanghai Shenhua who will, in fact, try to sign the Ivorian. Shanghai’s behavior is nothing new to football fans – the wages under discussion are. Similarly, stratospheric is the word from Evergrande owner Xu Jiayin promising an investment of $100 million on transfers this season.

Henk Ten Cate has signed on for Shandong Luneng, he joins a growing list of foreign managers in the CSL. Wild East Football has an article on the trend here, alongside the news that Chen Zhizhao has headed to Brazil’s Corinthians albeit with the bad omens of Dong Fangzhou’s time at Manchester United. The site also has an informative take on which sides are looking at who in their CSL transfer roundup.

China Sports Review has an article that suggests that Barcelona will soon be as untouchable off the pitch as they are on it – results against Espanyol notwithstanding. The Catalans have adopted a new approach to the Chinese market and it looks like it might well be the success that all European powerhouses (and Sheffield United) have so long craved.

Zheng Jie has made a comeback – literally and figuratively – on the tennis scene. She came from behind to beat Flavia Pennetta in the final of the ASB Classic in Auckland. That victory has put her name back on the Chinese women’s tennis map after being kept off it by Li Na. Zheng’s first WTA title since 2006 should shut people up about that French Open. But will they shut up about Li Na's Sydney International win? She made the final yesterday.

The Australian Open starts on Monday. Li Na faces the Czech star Ksenia Pervak in the first round.

If you like winter sports but hate the cold, the General Administration of Sport of China are your new best friends. They want to break the monopoly that the northeast has on winter sport and open it up to the South. Nanjing, Qingdao, Nanchang and Kunming are ready for skating and Xinjiang, Hubei, Yunnan and Sichuan are creating skiing venues. And yes, we know that some of these places are still not that warm.

And finally, Kokomo will host the first of Mashup’s Beer Pong Tournaments this Saturday. Enjoy it, dudes.

Image: Jalopnik.com