The number 125 is really amazing for Chinese tennis. On January 25, 2014, Li Na won the Australian Open women's singles championship, five years later, on the same day, Zhang Shuai won the Australian Open women's doubles championship, and five years later, on the 25th, Zheng Qinwen officially succeeded Li Na and reached the Grand Slam final for the first time, becoming a veritable Chinese second player.
The Australian Open women's singles semifinals will be the focus of the matchup, with Zheng Qinwen facing Ukraine's Yastremska. The latter's trip to the Australian Open is magical, winning eight consecutive victories from the qualifying round, miraculously reaching the semifinals, and defeating strong opponents such as Vondrousova, Navarro, and Azarenka. Her previous best result was only the round of 16 at Wimbledon, and her best result at the Australian Open was the round of 32. Compared with his opponents, Zheng Qinwen undoubtedly has a richer resume, having reached the round of 16 at the 2022 French Open and the top 8 at the US Open last year. Because of this, Zheng Qinwen was more optimistic about the outside world before this game.
In the first set, Zheng Qinwen was a little slow to heat up, and was broken by his opponent in the second game of the opening game. But she quickly seized the opportunity and took advantage of her opponent's four double faults in the third game to quickly complete the breakback. The two sides are back on the same starting line. In the crucial 7th game, Zheng Qinwen received a very fierce serve, got 3 break points when he came up, and finally broke smoothly. Zheng Qinwen won the first set 6-4.
In the second set, the two sides broke each other in the third and fourth games. However, Zheng Qinwen began to take the initiative after that, and lost 4 points in straight sets in the 6th game to hold serve strongly, and again lost 4 points in straight sets in the 7th game to break strongly. In the crucial 10th game, Zheng Qinwen withstood the pressure and won steadily, and finally defeated his opponent 6-4, 2-0, and entered the Grand Slam final for the first time in his career.
In this battle, Zheng Qinwen hit 4 aces, with a first-serve scoring rate of 55%, a first-serve scoring rate of 76%, 15 winning points, 19 UE, and a break efficiency of 11 breaks.
With this victory, Zheng Qinwen reached a Grand Slam final for the first time in her career, and she is also the second Chinese player after Li Na to reach a Grand Slam singles final. With 1,300 points, she rose to a new high of 7th in the world rankings. Facing the defending champion Saba in the women's singles final next, can Xiao Zheng still create surprises?