4 months ago
19
For the Chinese National Team, 17-year-old centre Zhang Ziyu has quickly gained popularity at the FIBA U18 Women's Asia Cup. Zhang, who is 7 feet 3 inches tall, has outperformed the opposition and drawn parallels to the great Yao Ming.
Zhang, who made her debut for China last week, has greatly benefited from her remarkable height. Social media users have been flooded with videos showing her making points and getting rebounds with ease.
According to CNN, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) subsequently released a video of her game highlights, showing the youngster towering over opponents and barely needing to jump to dunk the ball.
Given her height advantage, she looked devastating on defence while demonstrating her shooting accuracy from a distance.
The basketball page NextGen Hoops has referred to her as a "cheat code."
Zhang Ziyu is a cheat code 🧩
The 7'3" (220cm) center hardly broke a sweat getting her first buckets for Team China 🇨🇳#U18AsiaCup pic.twitter.com/1Vy9iecmXh
Zhang, who went by the moniker "Female Yao Ming" after the former star of the Houston Rockets, has been a major contributor to China's successful tournament debut.
While Zhang still has a journey ahead to reach Yao's career achievements, her performances this week are likely to capture the attention of WNBA teams.
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