news

wang xinyu greets the audience after advancing. image source: xinhuanet

on september 25, in the first round of the women's singles of the 2024 china open, three chinese golden flowers, wang xinyu, zhang shuai and wang qiang, took the court. in the end, guangdong girl wang xinyu and veteran zhang shuai defeated their opponents successively and advanced to the second round, while wang qiang was "knocked down" by the "heavy artillery" parks and unfortunately stopped.

wang xinyu easily advanced

according to the original draw of the china open, guangdong girl wang xinyu, who won the mixed doubles silver medal with zhang zhizhen at the paris olympics this year, will face the powerful anisimova, who became famous at a young age and is known for her fierce attack. she performed well during the warm-up match of this year's us open.

however, former french open champion ostapenko and former french open runner-up pavlyuchenkova withdrew due to injuries, resulting in a change in the matchup. anisimova filled the seeded seat, and her seat was taken by the "lucky loser" japanese player motodama shinyu. as a result, this player ranked outside the top 100 in the world became wang xinyu's first-round opponent. after the game, wang xinyu revealed that she only knew that her opponent had changed just before the start of the game. although she didn't have much time to prepare, she felt a little relieved.

wang xinyu's current world ranking is 52nd. she made it to the third round of the china open last year. with her excellent physical condition and tough playing style, she is known as the "chinese sharapova". on september 25, wang xinyu showed strong momentum at the beginning of the game. after successfully holding her serve in the first game, she seized the opportunity to break the serve in the second game and took the lead 3-0. in the sixth game, wang xinyu broke the serve again and finally won the first set 6-1. in the second set, wang xinyu's state remained stable and she won another game 6-3, thus defeating her opponent with a total score of 2-0, winning a "good start" for the chinese golden flower. in the second round, wang xinyu will face no. 32 seed kudermetova.

the two veterans have mixed feelings

unlike wang xinyu who advanced easily, the journey of two veteran players zhang shuai and wang qiang at the china open was mixed. the former fought hard for two sets and advanced, while the latter was reversed by her opponent after winning the first set.

as the former "no. 1" of chinese women's tennis, zhang shuai's opponent kessler is relatively weak. zhang shuai, who once had a brilliant record in the china open, reached the quarterfinals twice in 2016 and 2018, and became famous in 2009 when she defeated the then world no. 1 safina. unfortunately, she has been in poor form in recent years, especially before coming to the china open, she had suffered 24 consecutive losses in her career.

"i couldn't win the game before, maybe it's to win the game here." zhang shuai joked when interacting with fans after finally defeating kessler. she and kessler had never played against each other before, and this was the first time they met. in the first set, zhang shuai was broken by her opponent at the beginning, and fell behind 0-2 at the beginning. it was not until the 10th game that zhang shuai broke her opponent's serve and tied the game at 5-5. after that, both sides saved one game and the game was dragged into a tiebreak. in the tiebreak, zhang shuai cashed in on the third set point and won the first set 7-5. in the second set, the two fought again to 6-6 and entered the tiebreak again. in the tiebreak, zhang shuai continued the state of the first set, while her opponent's mentality collapsed. zhang shuai won again with a direct 7-1, eliminating her opponent with a total score of 2-0 and advancing to the second round.

"today, everyone saw me end my losing streak. thank you to everyone who came to the scene. they gave me great energy and allowed me to win this match." after the match, zhang shuai sincerely said that with her age and injuries, she is no longer the same person she used to be when she returned to the china open after 5 years. after 24 consecutive defeats, zhang shuai created the longest losing streak in the history of wta women's singles. this embarrassing record has finally ended. she said that 15 years ago in 2009, which was also the first year of the china open coming to the new stadium, "i won my first wta victory. the important reason why i had not won before was probably to end my losing streak here. i am no longer young when i come back. i try to show the best of myself in front of my hometown fans, but after all, i am not the young me. but i will still try my best."

(source: guangzhou daily)

for more exciting information, please download the "jimu news" client from the application market. please do not reprint without authorization. you are welcome to provide news clues, and you will be paid once adopted.