On the evening of May 14, Beijing time, the men's 1/8 finals of the Rome Tennis Masters continued, in a focus battle that just ended, Chinese player Zhang Zhizhen narrowly defeated the Brazilian good player Monteiro 2:0 to advance to the top 8, got 200 ATP points and took away 161995 euros in bonuses, and the instant ranking came to the highest 42nd place in his career, which is also the highest ranking of men in the mainland.
In this Rome Masters, Zhang Zhizhen relied on the world ranking 56th to enter the main event, in addition to Zhang Zhizhen, the teenager Shang Juncheng as a lucky loser, in the first round he actually got a bye and directly entered the second round, but unfortunately, he did not seize the opportunity with such a good signing, and finally lost to the wild card player Napolitano in the second round with a score of 7:6, 1:6, 0:6; Zhang Zhizhen was different, narrowly defeated Gran 6:2, 7:5 in the first round, swept the No. 19 seed Mannarino 6:1, 6:3 in the second round, and defeated the No. 12 seed Shelton in the third round 6:2, 6:4 before he was able to meet with Monteiro.
In the first set of the game, Zhang Zhizhen played well at the beginning, and got two break points as soon as he came up, but it was a pity that he missed the break point and was held by Monteiro because he was too conservative, and then both sides had no good chances, after 12 games, the two were still evenly matched to a 6:6 draw, and the game could only be decided by grabbing seven to win the first set, and when it came to the top seven, Zhang Zhizhen took the lead in breaking Monteiro's serve points, leading 2:0 at the beginning, but the advantage did not last long, Soon because of a mistake to send his own service points, Monteiro also seized the opportunity to overtake the score to 4:3, but after 4:3, Zhang Zhizhen played a good ball in a row, and won three points in a row to get two set points with 6:4, although Monteiro saved them one by one, but in the end Zhang Zhizhen still had a thrilling 8:6 and a big score of 7:6 to win the first place.
In the second set of the game, Zhang Zhizhen served first, although the energy at the beginning decreased, and he was forced out of the break point by Monteiro for a time, but fortunately, there was a serve at the critical moment, and finally resolved the crisis, the first 5 games of the two sides played 3:2, Zhang Zhizhen took the lead first, until the 6th game, that is, Monteiro's serve, Zhang Zhizhen not only waited for the opportunity, but also successfully achieved a break, that is, because of this break game, in the end, Zhang Zhizhen took the next set with a score of 6:3, and the big score was 2:0 to take away the victory of the 1/8 finals, After the victory, Zhang Zhizhen not only refreshed his ranking, but also created the history of Chinese men's tennis, which is really gratifying.
In the 1/4 finals, Zhang Zhizhen will challenge the No. 29 seed player Tabilo, and the opponent's recent form is also very hot, not only defeating the world's No. 1 Djokovic, but also eliminating the No. 16 seed Khachanov, this is definitely another Mars collision with the earth, I hope Zhang Zhizhen can make persistent efforts to continue to rewrite the history of men's tennis in the mainland, continue to work hard!