Zheng Jie is fun to watch, but why?

Is it that she simply looks a bit different from most tennis players, exotic for a Grand Slam semifinalist, as she becomes the first Asian to reach a major final four?

That's a bit of it, but there must be more. Is it knowing that she's ranked No. 133 in the world because of her hiatus with an ankle injury, and only the second female wild card to reach a Grand Slam semifinal in the 40-year Open era, the first since the great Monica Seles upon her return at the 1995 U.S. Open?

Sure, that's great, but that can't be all. Is it that she hails from a country (China) without much of a tennis legacy, and that she started out taking lessons from instructors who taught 10 to 20 pupils at a time, and that her 2006 Wimbledon doubles title with countrywoman Yan Zi was eclipsed by World Cup fever?

That's some of it, but still, no. Is it that she's playing her 15th Grand Slam event at age almost 25, and had never surpassed a fourth round until this one, which she entered only with that wild card, and when asked if she expected anything like this, replied, "No"?

Good, but . . . is it that she's playing a game that her culture prefers played on a table?

Yeah, that's pretty fetching, but still not the crux.

Is it that, in a sport with a burgeoning armada of tall drones who whack tennis balls from baselines often without any thought about what they're doing, it revs up the senses to see a 5-foot-4 1/2 sprite use her cleverness, her coolness and her low center of gravity to fell a series of redwoods, including a 6-foot-2 Ana Ivanovic and a 6-foot Nicole Vaidisova, among others?

Yeah, that's it.