Zhang Zhizhen has a breakthrough every year, and this year it was Rome's turn. In the duel with Shelton, Zhang Zhizhen played very well, not only swept his opponent in straight sets in only 71 minutes, but also did not allow his opponent to get a single break, and completed revenge after a year, and entered the round of 16 of the Rome Masters for the first time in his career.
ATP1000 the third round of the Rome men's singles, Zhang Zhizhen faced the No. 14 seed Sheldon. The current world rankings, Zhang Zhizhen 56, Shelton 14. The United States has made rapid progress in the past two years, and eliminated Zhang Zhizhen in the first round of the Australian Open last year in a five-set battle, and then went all the way to the top 8, and the US Open at the end of the year reached the top 4. This season, Sheldon is still in excellent form, winning the third round of the Australian Open, Houston won the title, Madrid Miami won the third round, and IW reached the fourth round.
Compared with Shelton, Zhang Zhizhen's singles form this season has been a bit sluggish, stopping in the second round of the Australian Open, and both Monka and IW stopped in the second round, only reaching the quarterfinals in Marseille. But he didn't expect to come to Roma, especially against Sheldon, where he was in such good form.
In the first set, Zhang Zhizhen scored 3 points in a row as soon as he came up and successfully completed the break. In the 7th game, Zhang Zhizhen received the opponent's double fault gift at the last moment and broke serve again, thus easily taking the next city 6-2. In the second set, Zhang Zhizhen still controlled the situation, and at the beginning of the first game, he scored 3 points in a row, took the lead in breaking serve again, and in the second game, he resolved the opponent's 2 break points and held serve hard, and finally won another set 6-4, swept the opponent 2-0, and advanced to the fourth round of Rome. It was also the fifth time in his career that he has won against a top 15 player.
In this battle, Zhang Zhizhen scored 74% of his first serve, cashed in 3 of his 8 break points, and was only 2 break points (uncashed) by his opponent. With this victory, he earned 100 points and 88,440 euros in prize money, placing him in 51st place instantly.