The WNBA could be in big, big trouble.
The Women’s National Basketball Association is booming right now thanks to a new generation of superstars taking the league by storm and the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird esque rivalry between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.
Clark and Reese look set to dominate the WNBA for the next decade plus, but one Chinese basketball star might have something to say about that and could disrupt their duopoly.
Zhang Ziyu, who is listed as 7ft 3in tall on the official FIBA websitenis a 16-year-old female basketball player and recently made her international debut for the Chinese national team, giving the world a glimpse at her awesome frame.
She went a perfect 9-for-9 from the floor for 19 points, along with seven rebounds, two assists, two steals, and three blocks – all in 13 minutes off the bench in a 109-50 win against Indonesia in the opening game of China’s FIBA U18 Women’s Asia Cup 2024.
Highlights of Ziyu’s performance went viral as fans reacted to seeing her for the first time.
The immensely tall teen – reported in some quarters as being 7ft 5in, which would make her taller than Victor Wembanyama – towers over her much smaller opposition and makes her virtually unstoppable around the basket.
She collects rebounds, blocks shots and scores layups with ease as the helpless defenders make futile attempts to stop her.
“Zhang Ziyu is a cheat code,” one fan wrote.
“Lmao Angel Reese is so cooked,” joked another.
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Ziyu towers over her much smaller oppositionCredit: Getty
She is 7ft 5in and an unstoppable inside presenceCredit: Getty
“She’ll dominate the wnba, she’s pretty solidly built too unlike a lot of these gigantic kids that are all skin & bones,” a third posted.
“WNBA is not ready for this,” wrote a fourth.
Zhang has been on the radar for some time now after drawing comparisons to compatriot and NBA legend Yao Ming.
She quickly became known as ‘the female Yao Ming’ in China – no small comparison given Ming is considered one of the country’s greatest sportsmen and was inducted into Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.
The gigantic center Ziyu was nearly 7ft aged 11 and towered over her classmates at Wenhua East Road Primary School in Jinan, capital of East China’s Shandong Province.
Both her parents are former professional basketball players, who began teaching their daughter about the sport at the age of five.
