In the 2024 season ATP1000 Rome Masters, Chinese star Zhang Zhizhen competed with qualifier Monteiro for a place in the quarterfinals. In the first set, the two played quite intensely, and all the statistics were very close, and Zhang Zhizhen took the lead with a tie-break. In the second set, Zhang Zhizhen completed a key break in the sixth game, and the game score was 6-3. With a score of 2-0, Zhang Zhizhen eliminated Monteiro to advance to the quarterfinals!
Zhang Zhizhen is the first brother of the Chinese men's tennis team, and he performed very well in the clay season last season, reaching the quarterfinals of the Madrid Masters and the semifinals of the 500-level Hamburg tournament, creating the best record in the history of Chinese men's tennis in the ATP Masters! In addition, Zhang Zhizhen also won the men's singles gold medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games, and defeated Ruud at the US Open at the end of the year to win the first historical victory against the men's singles world top 5 for the Chinese men's tennis team. This season, Zhang Zhizhen once again entered the top 50 in the world, once again refreshing the highest ranking in the history of Chinese men's tennis, compared with the previous world rankings, Zhang Zhizhen fell 7 places to 56th in the world.
At the Rome Masters, Zhang defeated 12th seed Shelton 6-2, 6-4 to reach the round of 16 for the first time in the tournament, while Zhang Zhizhen also rose to 51st in the world rankings. In the 1/8 finals, Zhang Zhizhen faced the qualifier Monteiro, Brazil's Monteiro is ranked 106th in the world, winning 5 consecutive games from the qualifying round to advance to the round of 16, and narrowly defeated Serbian star Kecmanovic in the last round through a tiebreaker. Once Zhang Zhizhen can beat Monteiro in this match to reach the quarterfinals, Zhang Zhizhen will be ranked 42nd in the world, thus breaking the highest ranking in the history of Chinese tennis men's singles players.
In the first set, Monteiro served first and held serve. With a strong serve, Zhang Zhizhen won his first two service games steadily. In the first four games, Monteiro and Zhang Zhizhen fought to a 2-2 draw. In Monteiro's third service game, Zhang Zhizhen got a break point, and Monteiro saved the break point and held serve with difficulty. Subsequently, Zhang Zhizhen guaranteed the sixth game, and drew 3-3 after the first six games. Monteiro saved the seventh game, and Zhang Zhizhen saved two break points to hold the eighth game. After each completed two games of hold, the game was tied at 6-6 and entered a tie-break in the first set. In the tie-break battle, Zhang Zhizhen scored three points in a row after 4-4 and won 7-4.
In the second set, Zhang Zhizhen had a first-mover advantage, and each successfully held serve in the first two games. In the third game, Zhang Zhizhen was unstable, Monteiro continued to put pressure to get multiple break points, and Zhang Zhizhen withstood the pressure and resolved them one by one to complete the difficult hold. In the fourth game, Monteiro also held serve. After winning the fifth game, Zhang Zhizhen completed a strong break of four straight points in the sixth game, establishing a 4-2 lead in the game and having a break game advantage. Zhang Zhizhen completed the seventh game of the hold without danger, Monteiro won the eighth game that had to be guaranteed, Zhang Zhizhen then won the serve to win the game 6-3 and won again, and swept Monteiro 2-0 to advance to the quarterfinals.
Winning this match, Zhang Zhizhen reached the quarterfinals of the clay Masters after Madrid last year, and also refreshed the highest ranking in the history of Chinese men's tennis (previously 46th, now 42nd, both created by Zhang Zhizhen), from this point of view, it is a great 2-0!