It’s great news for China sport fans: for the first time ever, two Chinese female tennis players have made it into the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open. Media coverage in the PRC is, understandably, ecstatic.

The only hitch is that these two just happen to be women who have said “No” to China’s state-run sports monolith. They choose their own schedules and coaches, and—eat your heart out, Yao Ming!—they get to keep most of their prize money.

Cankao Xiaoxi (参考消息), China's leading digest of international news, steps in to perform a bit of plastic surgery...