On April 24, Beijing time, the WTA1000 Madrid station continued the first round of competition. China's Golden Flower Yuan Yue did not play well, losing 2-6, 4-6 to her opponent in two sets, and missed out on her first clay 1000 victory.
Yuan Yue has improved rapidly this season, first winning five matches at the WTA 250 Austin in North America, including defeating Wang Xiyu in the final to win her first career tour title. Yuan Yue then came to WTA1000 Indian Wells, defeated masters including Zheng Qinwen, and finally lost to Grand Slam champion Gauff, won nine consecutive victories, and reached the quarterfinals. In just two weeks, the world rankings soared from 70th to 37th. Yuan Yue advanced to the quarterfinals at the WTA 250 Rouen, earning her first career clay Tour victory and her first clay clay quarterfinals.
This WTA Madrid is the first clay 1000 series of Yuan Yue's career. In the first round, he faced Kazakhstan's Putintseva, ranked 50th in the world. The two sides had previously met once in Hobart at the beginning of the year, with Yuan Yue winning 7-5, 7-6.
In the first set of the game, Yuan Yue took the lead in serving and held serve in the first four games, 2-2. After that, Putintseva broke twice and won four games in a row, 6-2 Yuan Yue, and won the set with a strong serve to win four points in a row.
In the second set, Yuan Yue's state recovered, and she came up to break serve first and took a 3-0 lead. But Putintseva made another effort and broke serve twice to overtake the score 5-3. In the ninth game, Yuan Yue had to protect the serve game, tenaciously holding serve, 5-4. In the tenth game, Putintseva served to win the set, and Yuan Yue wasted multiple match points and failed to break. At 6-4, Putintseva won another set.
The clay court is indeed difficult for Chinese Jinhua, Yuan Yue always has a sudden power outage in this game, the stability of the clay court technology is not enough, and the grasp of key balls is even more lacking.
In yesterday's first round, Wang Xiyu defeated Romania's Bogdan 6-7(5)/7-6(4)/6-2 after 3 hours and 21 minutes of fierce battle, and advanced to the second round first. In the second round, he will face the world's No. 1 sister, Swiatek.
In addition to Yuan Yue's game today, Zhu Lin, Zhang Shuai, Wang Xinyu, and Wang Yafan will all play successively. At the moment, Zhu Lin's match is underway, and she is temporarily behind 4-6/3-4.