Shinobu Asagoe
A three-set loss to Francesca Schiavone in the first round of the French Open prevented Zheng from defending her ranking points accrued there the previous year. In August, she reached the second round at Los Angeles by again beating Shinobu Asagoe, the Canadian Open quarterfinal (with wins over María Emilia Salerni and Ai Sugiyama), and another quarterfinal at New Haven (after defeating Katarina Srebotnik and Émilie Loit in qualifying, and Jamea Jackson in the main draw, though she was assisted by entering the tournament with a first-round bye and as a lucky loser in the final round of qualifying to Jelena Kostanić).