For Taiwanese professional athletes, especially those in individual sports, finding corporate sponsors has been extremely difficult, a problem highlighted in the recent nationality change of pool player Wu Chia-ching, who switched from ROC to PRC citizenship because of career concerns. In an effort to stop the sports talent drain, a local financial holding company reached a sponsorship deal this week with Taiwanese golfer Tseng Yani, the world's top-ranked LPGA player.

World's top-ranked player in women's golf, Tseng Yani, has signed her first sponsorship deal with a Taiwanese company on Sunday, and will endorse the company. There was a rumor saying that some Chinese companies offered a 100-million-NT-dollar sponsorship in order to persuade her to switch to Chinese citizenship.

However, Tseng said she would not consider playing for another country because Taiwan is where her home is and she will fight for the country.

Finally, a Taiwanese enterprise has decided to support her with sponsorship.

The head of the Taiwanese enterprise, Thomas Wu refused to disclose the amount of the deal, but it was widely reported that Tseng will be paid about US$500,000, around 14.3 million NT dollars a year.

Tseng said with gratitude that she's lucky to have many people's support and she was sad to see that athletes like Wu Chia-ching had turned to Chinese citizenship.

It is the first time that a Taiwanese company has offered big sponsorship to Tseng Yani.

Vice President, Vincent Shaw, who has always been paying close attention to Tseng's performance also said that he hopes with the sponsorship, Tseng can have better performance, and more Taiwanese companies can follow suit to support Taiwan's professional athletes.