Focus on tennis events and pay attention to the performance of Chinese players.
ATP1000 the Rome Masters continued, and the third round of singles was a key battle between China's "first brother" Zhang Zhizhen and the tournament's No. 12 seed, American teenager Sheldon.
The winner of this match will advance to the round of 16.
At the Madrid Masters, Zhang Zhizhen, who bravely reached the top 8 last year, was not able to go out of the first round, lost a lot of points, and fell to outside the top 50 in the rankings.
As the last Masters before the French Open, the Rome Masters has always been a must-win for all players.
China's first brother Zhang Zhizhen ushered in a small explosion, beating Colombian player Gran in the first round to get off to a good start, and facing the French veteran Mannarino in the second round, he only lost four games to complete the sweep.
The match with Shelton is Zhang Zhizhen's revenge battle and an opponent who will hit the round of 16.
The two have played each other once before, and at last year's Australian Open, Zhang Zhizhen lost to each other.
In the first set, Sheldon served first.
Zhang Zhizhen got off to a dream start, forcing a break point to break his opponent's serve as soon as he came up, and he successfully held serve in the second game, establishing a 2-0 advantage with consecutive breaks.
In the next few games, the two held serve respectively, and in the 7th game, Zhang Zhizhen found it again, and broke serve for the second time, expanding the advantage to 5-2;
In the 8th game, Zhang Zhizhen won the set with a serve and won the first set 6-2;
The start of the second set was somewhat similar to the first set, with Zhang breaking in the opponent's first service game;
However, in the second game, Sheldon launched a blow and forced consecutive break points, and Zhang Zhizhen withstood the pressure and resolved the opponent's two consecutive break points to hold serve, consolidating the break advantage;
With the advantage of the score alternately rising, the game quickly came to the end of the set.
In the 10th game, Zhang Zhizhen successfully held serve in the service game, and won another game with a score of 6-4 to end the whole game.
In the end, after two sets of competition, Zhang Zhizhen broke the No. 12 seed of the tournament and the rising American star Shelton, and while avenging the success of last year's Australian Open, he advanced to the round of 16 with his head held high, which is also the first time that the Chinese men's tennis has reached the round of 16 stage of the Rome Masters, and Zhang Zhizhen has once again become the first person in men's tennis.
It is worth mentioning that this game is the fifth time in Zhang Zhizhen's career that he has defeated the world's top 15 players, which shows that Zhang Zhizhen, who is online, has a very strong impact on the master.
In an interview after the game, Zhang Zhizhen said that he had maintained a good state in this game, and the bottom line was dominant, and he did not give his opponent many chances.
In addition, the winning Zhang Zhizhen will also receive 100 points and a round bonus of 884.4 million euros, equivalent to about 680,000 yuan, which can be described as a great harvest.
Congratulations again to Zhizhen Zhang for reaching the round of 16 of the Rome Masters!
Reporting/Feedback