Mountains and seas can be flat! Zheng Qinwen's first win over Sabalenka!

On May 14, local time, WTA1000 Rome ended the women's singles quarterfinals in the first half of the region, Chinese player and No. 8 seed Zheng Qinwen defeated world No. 1 Sabalenka in straight sets 6-4/6-3, winning the first victory in seven meetings between the two sides, breaking the latter's nine-game winning streak, which was also the second victory of her career against No.1 (beating Swiatek at the Paris Olympics). Zheng Qinwen entered the semifinals of Rome for the first time and reached the semifinals of the 1000 for the third time.

Both sides held serve in the first four games, especially in the fourth, where Zheng Qinwen saved two break points and then broke four straight points in the fifth game before taking the lead all the way to a 6-4 lead. Zheng Qinwen broke again at the beginning of the second set and quickly took a 2-0 lead. Although she missed six break points in the fifth and seventh games and was unable to widen the gap further, Zheng Qinwen improved her form again in the closing stages, saving two break points in the eighth game and breaking Sabalenka's service game in the ninth game to seal the win at 6-3.

Zheng Qinwen enters the semifinals of the clay 1000 tournament for the first time (Photo: Li Jianyi)

Zheng Qinwen's first six meetings with Sabalenka have all taken place on hard courts, and when she spoke after the match, the Chinese Jinhua said that playing on clay gave her more advantage: "I've been trying to beat her all the time, and sometimes I've been very close, but I've never won. This is our first clay match, and I think I'm more comfortable playing on clay because I have a lot of experience on clay. ”

"I was more consistent today, in the past when I played her, I always lost the first few games and lost the first set very quickly, but today when she got the break point, I was able to hold my ground. So I won the first set and I didn't want to give her too many chances. I was more patient than her [Sabalenka] and I'm happy with my performance and I'm happy to finally take this step and win against the world number one. ”

Gauff (Photo: Visual China)

Zheng Qinwen became only the second woman to reach the semi-finals in Rome after Li Na, who finished runner-up in the Women's Singles in 2012. Zheng Qinwen's next opponent in the semi-finals will be fourth seed Gauff, who defeated seventh seed Andreeva 6-4, 7-6(5) to win all four fights against the latter and advance to the semi-finals of Rome for the third time in her career. The two sides have met twice before, the first was in the quarter-finals of Rome last year, where Zheng Qinwen lost in two sets, and the second was in last year's WTA Finals, when Zheng Qinwen was reversed by Gauff after winning one set.

According to the schedule, two men's singles quarterfinals and two women's singles semifinals will be played on May 15, local time, and Zheng Qinwen will appear no earlier than 2:30 a.m. Beijing time tomorrow to face No. 4 seed Gauff.

(Text, Editor/Faye Wong)