体坛英语新闻：NBA star Yao marries long-term girlfriend Ye Li

SHANGHAI - NBA star center Yao Ming has got married to his long-term girlfriend Ye Li in their hometown Shanghai on Monday.

NBA star Yao Ming and his fiance Ye Li pose in their official wedding portrait in Hangzhou, China in this photo released August 6, 2007. Yao married Ye at a jealously guarded private ceremony at a luxury hotel in Shanghai on Monday. [Handout]

A low-key wedding ceremony was held in the five-star Shangri-La Hotel in Shanghai, and only some 70 family members and relatives were present, according to Zhang Chi, press representative of Team Yao, which manages Yao's career.

The ceremony, which lasted three hours, included exchange of rings, offering tea and flowers to parents to express gratitude, and sharing of a wedding cake, according to Zhang.

About 100 security guards had worked for the nuptial in which only 10 dinner tables were arranged with each costing 12,300 yuan (1,618 U.S. dollars), local media reported.

Yao, 27 and 2.26-meter-tall Houston Rockets star, and his bride Ye, a 26-year-old, 1.9-meter-tall player on China's national women's basketball team, received their official marriage certificate in Shanghai's Xuhui District on Friday.

On July 31, the couple had been spotted near the Taihu lake in Lin'an of east China's Zhejiang Province taking wedding photos.

According to Yao' autobiography, "Yao: A life in two worlds", he met Ye in 1999, when Yao was playing for the Shanghai Sharks. Their romance went public when the two were seen walking hand-in-hand at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Yao will fly to Beijing Tuesday to attend celebrations for the one-year countdown to the 2008 Olympics on August 8, Zhang said.