On September 18, Beijing time, in the second round of the 2024 WTA 250 Thailand Hua Hin Station, the No. 5 seed of the tournament, Chinese golden flower Wang Xiyu and Germany veteran Sigmund joined hands to play the hardest battle in 40 years outside the women's tennis Grand Slam, the whole match took 4 hours and 09 minutes to play three sets, Wang Xiyu lost to the 36-year-old opponent with a big score of 1-2 after two sets of tie-breaks.
Sigmund is 36 years old, Wang Xiyu is only 23 years old, Sigmund is ranked 99th in the world, Wang Xiyu is ranked 62nd, Wang Xiyu is listed as the No. 5 seed in this competition, Wang Xiyu has a clear advantage in all aspects. In the previous first round, Sigmund defeated Parks 6-4, 6-3, while Wang Xiyu defeated Gnubic 7-5, 6-1. In the second round, Sigmund and Wang Xiyu ushered in the second meeting of their careers, which seemed to be an ordinary tour match, but it set a record for the longest time in the last 40 years in the WTA except for the four Grand Slams, and the 4 hours and 09 minutes were also the fourth longest game in the history of the entire WTA arena.
The first set lasted 1 hour and 25 minutes! Wang Xiyu took the lead and established the advantage of breaking serve. Sigmund completed the break, tied the game 6-6, and entered the tie-break. Sigmund won the first set 7-3 to tie-break, and the game score was 7-6 to take a 1-0 lead. In the second set, it was still Wang Xiyu who took the lead in breaking serve to establish a game lead, Sigmund broke Wang Xiyu's serve to win the set to chase 4-5, Wang Xiyu replied to the opponent with a break to win the tenth game, and pulled back a city with a game score of 6-4. In the deciding set, Sigmund led all the way, Wang Xiyu counterattacked in the final stage to tie the game and enter the tie-break again, Sigmund won the tie-break 7-1 again, and won the key tiebreaker with a score of 7-6, and the big score was 2-1 to advance.
It is worth mentioning that Sigmund cashed in the match point, which was a double fault by Wang Xiyu! Previously, in the first round of the US Open women's singles, the last Grand Slam event of the year, Wang Xiyu gave a double fault gift on the opponent's match point. In this battle, in Wang Xiyu's game, I saw a double fault at the match point again, and there may have been a certain psychological shadow. According to the official statistics of the WTA, the duel between Sigmund and Wang Xiyu is the fourth-longest marathon battle in the WTA in the Open era, with two of the top three matches taking place in Grand Slam events, and outside of the four Grand Slams, Wang Xiyu and Sigmund's 4 hours and 09 minutes are second only to Nelson and Dunbar's 6 hours and 31 minutes in Richmond in 1984.