On the evening of May 13, Beijing time, the first half of the 2024 WTA1000 Rome Station ended the 1/8 finals. Zheng Qinwen swept Naomi Osaka, Gauff reversed Badosa, and Zheng Qinwen faced Gauff in the 1/4 finals, ushering in the first meeting between the two sides in their careers. World No. 1 Swiatek and American star Keys won one after another to advance, and the quarterfinals were separated by the net.
American star Case
In the fourth round of Rome, the No. 18 seed and American star Keith took the lead to face the No. 28 seed of the tournament, Romania's Kostia. The two sides have met once in their careers, losing 2-1 to Keys in Madrid in 2019. In today's match, Kostya was completely out of shape, and Keith swept his opponent 6-2, 6-1 without much effort, and after reaching the semi-finals in Madrid, the two clay 1000 tournaments advanced to the quarterfinals back-to-back, and it was also the first time in eight years that he broke into the quarterfinals of this tournament.
China's first sister Zheng Qinwen
At the same time, the focus of attention of Chinese fans was the tournament's No. 7 seed Australian Open runner-up Zheng Qinwen against four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka. The two sides met once in the first round of the 2022 WTA 500 San Jose station, and Zheng Qinwen lost 4-6, 6-3, 1-6. At the same time, Zheng Qinwen complained about the treachery of Zheng Qinwen's former coach Fisset, and Fisette is now coaching Naomi Osaka, adding a lot of highlights to this game. Sure enough, the game began, Zheng Qinwen played a rare wonderful game after the Australian Open, Zheng Qinwen was highly focused in the whole game, played extremely confidently, the game became one-sided, Zheng Qinwen was bloodless, 6-2, 6-4 and even sent invisible eggs, defeated Naomi Osaka in straight sets, and advanced to the quarterfinals strongly, which is also the second quarterfinals after Dubai this year.
The tournament's No. 3 seed, Gauff
The third 1/8 final of the first half of the bracket will be between the tournament's No. 3 seed Gauff and Spain's Badosa. The two sides have met four times in their careers, with Badosa holding a 3-1 advantage, most recently in Madrid last year, where Bardosa defeated Gauff 6-3, 6-0. Gauff has been inconsistent and endured a rollercoaster ride in the last round, beating Christian 6-1, 0-6, 6-3 to advance to the fourth round. Badosa also defeated Snyder in three sets to advance to the round of 16.
In the first set, Gauff took the lead in serving and held each other's serve 3-3 in the first six games. In the seventh game, Badosa broke first and took a 5-3 lead, but Gauff stubbornly broke back and chased the score to 5-5. After that, at the end of the set, Badosa made another effort, and now broke the back protection, 7-5 to take the next city. In the second set, Gauff relied on a break at the end of the set to return the color at 6-4. In the deciding set, Gauff took the lead in serving, and after coming up and being broken by his opponent, Gauff won 6 games in a row and won the deciding set 6-1. The aggregate score was 2-1 to advance to the quarterfinals.
The world's first sister, Swiatek
The final match of the first half was between current world No. 1 Swiatek and former world No. 1 Kerber. Swiatek won both of the two meetings, most recently in the Confederations Cup at the beginning of the year, with Swiatek comfortably winning 6-3, 6-0. In the first set of today, the competition between the two sides was still fierce, and Swiatek broke first in the eighth game to take a 5-3 lead. Kerber then broke back to make it 5-5. At the end of the set, Swiatek was stronger, first defending and then breaking, winning the first set 7-5. In the second set, Kerber broke Swal's first service game, but the lead was not maintained, and Swa's break quickly made it 3-3. After that, Swiatek was full of firepower, winning three games in a row, taking the game 6-3 and advancing to the quarterfinals.
In the quarterfinals of the first half, Swiatek vs Case, Zheng Qinwen vs Gauff. For Zheng Qinwen, this is the first meeting between the two sides in their careers, Zheng Qinwen, who is in the online state, faces Gauff, who has great ups and downs in state, I believe that Zheng Qinwen can go further, come on Zheng Qinwen, the first 1000 semi-finals of his career are coming!