This afternoon, the 1/4 finals of the 2024 China Open Women's Singles took the lead in the second half of the competition, Chinese player Zhang Shuai played against Spain's Badosa, and Zhang Shuai was completely suppressed by the opponent in this match!
In the first set, Zhang Shuai came up and lost 4 points in a row and was broken by the opponent, Badosa broke and chased away the score, and in the third game Zhang Shuai's serve, she lost 4 points in a row and was broken.
Such a start was really demoralizing, but Badosa kept his serve. The score soon came to 4-0, and Zhang Shuai was beaten back to his original shape.
In the fifth game, Zhang Shuai still encountered stubborn resistance, and after saving a break point, she also missed a game point, but fortunately, in the second game point, she finally seized the opportunity to complete the hold.
However, Badosa is also very tough, her serve game is also easy to hold, in the 7th game, Zhang Shuai's serve game, also completely lost energy, mistakes began to increase, and soon lost 4 points in a row, the first set 1-6 defeat to the opponent.
In the second set of the game, Zhang Shuai's state also came up, in the first game, Badosa won the game point 3 times, but did not give up, chasing point by point, slowly catching up and overtaking the score, and finally broke with difficulty and took the lead in the score.
In the second game, Zhang Shuai still had a strong fighting spirit, and when he was 0-30 behind, he scored 4 points in a row to achieve a reversal, and the general's advantage expanded. After that, the two held their own serves, and Zhang Shuai achieved a 3-1 advantage.
The fifth game became a turning point, Zhang Shuai did not seize the opportunity to break serve 30-0 and was successfully held by the opponent. Badosa, whose morale was greatly boosted, broke the belt after that, won 2 games in a row, and instantly overtook the score 4-3.
In the 8th game of Zhang Shuai's serve, she finally withstood the pressure, and when the score was behind, she scored 3 points in a row to complete the hold, and the two fought 4-4!
After that, the two held serve in their own service games, with excellent serves, and the score was still inseparable.
In the 11th game, Zhang Shuai went all out to attack the opponent's serve, although he also saved 2 game points, but still lost to the opponent in the end. In the 12th game, Zhang Shuai had to protect the serve, she scored 3 points in a row to reverse the score, and struggled to hold serve, and the two entered the tie-break 7 battle.
In the tie-7 game, the score of the two has not been opened, Zhang Shuai chased from 1-1 to 4-4, but after that, she lost 3 points in a row to lose the tie-7 battle 4-7, and the big score was 6-7 and lost another set, with a total score of 0-2 and missed the top 4!
Compared with the previous 4 consecutive wins, today's Zhang Shuai's performance is not ideal, Badosa blasted 10 aces in the whole game, Zhang Shuai did not have one, the first serve scoring rate is only 57%, and the second serve scoring rate is only 24%, how can this win?
There is still a gap between today's Zhang Shuai and the excellent performance of the first 4 rounds, but she was tenacious enough in the second set to almost equalize, but unfortunately there is still a gap in strength with the top 20 players.
Zhang Shuai missed the top four of the China Open, missed the opportunity to refresh his best score, and also missed the prize money of $325,000, which is really a pity.
But in the shadow of 24 consecutive defeats, Zhang Shuai has proven himself by winning 4 consecutive games to break into the top 8 of the China Open women's singles. Now there is only one domestic player left in the China Open, Zheng Qinwen, can she withstand the pressure and win the championship? We'll see!