Gargantuan 7ft 3in, 16-year-old female Chinese basketball star dubbed a ‘cheat code’ and could shake up Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese’s WNBA rivalry
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.
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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 website is 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.
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The immensely tall teen - reported in some quarters as being 7ft 5in, which would make her taller than Spurs phenom Victor Wembanyama - towers over her much smaller opposition and is 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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"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.
Her father is 7ft and her mother, Yu Ying, is a 6ft 6in former Chinese national team player who now coaches at Shandong’s provincial women’s basketball team.
When Ziyu was 14 she went viral on the Chinese social media site Weibo after leading her team to a championship in the U15 National Basketball League.
Zhang recorded 42 points, 25 rebounds and six blocks in the championship game.
One of the users on Weibo wrote at the time: “The future of the Chinese women's basketball counts on you.â€
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In 2022 she scored a staggering 68 points and 24 rebounds while representing her home city Jinan against Zibo.
It was Zhang's second 60-plus game in less than three weeks after she contributed 62 points and 13 rebounds at the national under-15 championship final against Changzhou.
"It's not only her size, she also possesses a high basketball IQ, good hands and is so smart on the court," her junior high school coach, Luan Mingjie .
"As for her athletic abilities, she can jump and run. She doesn't need to though at this level because defenders can barely reach her elbow when she raises both hands to shoot a basket or grab a rebound. She has much more to offer than she's shown at junior level."
Zhang is now making big waves on the international circuit.
Every WNBA team will be on high alert after she put on such a dominant display in her first gig with the national team.
It surely won't be long before she graces the WNBA hardwood.
Ziyu followed up her international debut with another monster performance.
Against Japan, she scored a whopping 44 points (20-of-22 from the floor) to go along with 14 rebounds and five assists.
"WNBA about to get the own version of Yao Ming", one person wrote after China's 97-81 victory.
FIBAÂ noted her scoring output was a tournament record, surpassing the 39 points from Hsiao Yu Wen of Chinese Taipei in 2022.
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It comes Ziyu she dropped 36 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks in a win over New Zealand.
The host country are now into the semi-finals of the FIBA U18 Women's Asia Cup 2024 where it will meet either South Korea or New Zealand.
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