On March 7, Beijing time, in the 2022 WTA Lyon women's singles final, 33-year-old Chinese sister Zhang Shuai overcame various disadvantages to defeat Ukraine's Yastremska to win the first tour women's singles championship and the third career tour singles championship in five years, second only to Li Na and Zheng Jie.
From the trough to the rush out of the water, Zhang Shuai used defeat and humiliation as fuel to push him forward. "Once I also thought about a hundred, a person standing on the cold street, wanting to go but not knowing where to go... I finally got back on my feet, like a child toddler. Zhang Shuai posted a feeling after the game.
On-site domineering response to "black powder"
Zhang Shuai is in good shape in this tournament, with a record of not losing a set to advance to the women's singles final, which is also the first time since the Nottingham Open last June, and the fifth time in his career to break into the Tour women's singles championship, and Zhang Shuai competed for the championship is a Ukrainian post-00, holding a wild card to participate in The Yastremska, but this women's singles final is not simple for Zhang Shuai.
Due to well-known reasons, the opponent's support is almost completely one-sided, and some even send Boos and inverted colors to Zhang Shuai, which also completely angered Zhang Shuai, after winning the key points in the 8th set of the third set, Zhang Shuai domineeringly turned around and pointed directly at the direction of the discordant sound and roared "come on", and finally Zhang Shuai resisted various unfavorable factors, gritted his teeth and reversed to win the championship and fought back against "black powder".
At the award ceremony, Zhang Shuai also sent a lot of comfort to his opponents, which can be said to be quite decent.
"It turns out I still have so much potential"
In the women's doubles, Zhang Shuai and Stosur have won the 2019 Australian Open championship and the 2021 US Open championship, but in the singles field, she has been silent for many years, repeatedly encountering one round and two rounds of travel on the Grand Slam, and finally insisted on blossoming in Lyon.
Zhang Shuai scored the first grand slam tournament in the 2008 US Open, but since then he has suffered 14 consecutive defeats in the grand slam stage, until the 2016 Australian Open regular tournament, when Zhang Shuai considered whether to retire, he ushered in an outbreak in Melbourne, defeated the world's first Halep at the time, and reached the quarterfinals in one fell swoop, Zhang Shuai's insistence on coming back finally waited for the return. On the tour, Zhang Shuai defeated Jin Jiuci in Guangzhou in 2013 to win the first title of her career tour, and four years later in Guangzhou in 2017, she defeated Klunic to win the second crown, but has since been insulated from the champion.
The 2020 tennis season suffered the impact of the epidemic and fell into a standstill, and Zhang Shuai was also one of the few players who continued to compete on the tour after the restart of the season, but at the beginning of the 2021 season, Zhang Shuai suffered the lowest performance of his career, and even seven consecutive defeats in the singles field, including the Australian Open, Miami, Madrid and Rome and other key competitions were out of the first round, the doubles season began, and the first 6 games were only won once.
In the past two years, she has maintained a combination of singles, doubles and even mixed doubles for a long time, this season, Zhang Shuai previously revealed that he did not rule out the possibility of saying goodbye to the field at the end of this season, but after winning this championship, Zhang Shuai's world ranking came to 41st, once again becoming the highest ranking player in the world of the Chinese women's tennis. Talking about the long-lost champion, Zhang Shuai is quite satisfied, "I haven't tasted the taste of the champion for a long time, which makes me see that I still have a lot of potential, and I hope to continue to work hard." ”
"Gu Ailing inspires me to keep working hard"
The first person in the history of singles on the China Jinhua Tour undoubtedly belongs to Li Na, who has reached the Tour women's singles finals a total of 21 times in her career and won 9 championships, including two Grand Slam titles and a Super Five (WTA1000) championship. Li Na was followed by Zheng Jie, who reached the Women's Singles Finals of the Tour seven times in her career and won 4 titles, in addition to Zheng Jie also has 15 doubles titles, which is the most Chinese tennis players on the Tour doubles championships.
After winning the championship in Lyon, Zhang Shuai's tour championship number came to the third, occupying the third position in the history of China's Jinhua. In the latest edition of the WTA Women's Singles World Rankings, Zhang Shuai is currently ranked 41st among Chinese players, followed by Zheng Qinwen (74th), Wang Xinyu (84th) and Wang Qiang (104th).
Zhang Shuai, 33, is a veteran of China's Golden Flower Army, and the positive impact of a tour singles championship trophy will inspire The Little Flowers to continue to work hard. Zhang Shuai said frankly: "At the Beijing Winter Olympics some time ago, I saw that Gu Ailing and Su Yiming were so young and promising, and Fan Kexin, Wu Dajing and Xu Mengtao, veterans who had worked hard for so many years to finally realize their dreams, this scene touched me. There are also the recent Winter Paralympic Games, and seeing that they have a stronger mental will and psychology than we do is worth learning, maybe I feel that I have not worked hard enough, and I will continue. ”
Text/Qiu Ye
Photo: Xinhua News Agency
Video clip / Hubei Daily reporter Hu Yuwei