ZHAO LEI, 21, of Qingdao, won the women’s singles gold medal in soft tennis beating Kim Ae-kyung of South Korea 4-1 at the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou on Wednesday.

    It was the first time a Chinese athlete had won an Asiad soft tennis gold. Zhao dominated the game by winning three successive rounds.

    Zhao failed to enter the semi-finals at the 15th Asian Games in Doha four years ago by losing to Jiang Wanqi of Chinese Taipei.

    Zhao is now teaching at the Hong Kong Road Primary School in Qingdao, the youngest teacher at the school.

    (Chen Ting, Liu Changzhou, Sun Fei)