Guangzhou: China’s wildcard entrant Zhang Shuai won her maiden WTA Tour singles title with a 7-6 (1) 6-1 victory over American qualifier Vania King in the Guangzhou Open final yesterday.
Playing in her first singles final, the 112th-ranked Zhang continued her run of straight-set victories and won the $500,000 hard-court tournament in front of her delighted home crowd.
After an evenly-matched first set, Zhang ran through the second, winning 16 of the last 17 points against the 124th-ranked American.
Zhang, whose previous best singles performance was reaching the semi-finals in the same event in 2010, became the fifth Chinese player to win a WTA title after Li Na, Zheng Jie, Yan Zi and Sun Tiantian.
Meanwhile, Poland’s world number four Agnieszka Radwanska breezed past Spaniard Larra Arruabarrena 6-0 6-2 in the semi-finals of the Korea Open yesterday to set up a title clash with Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Pavlyuchenkova, seeded third, had a tough outing against former French Open champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy but eventually prevailed 7-6 (11) 7-6 (6) in the other semi-final.
Top-seeded Radwanska continued her good form on her Seoul debut, having dropped just 11 games in four matches, and needed 64 minutes to thrash the Spaniard, ranked 113 in the world.
“It was definitely a very good match. I was playing really good tennis,” said Radwanska, after reaching her fourth final of the year.
“It was really hot out there but I played my 100 percent throughout the match, so that’s why it was two quick sets.”
Pavlyuchenkova was hopeful that she could recover for Sunday’s final after her gruelling semi-final that lasted two hours and 23 minutes.
“I’m so tired right now, to be honest,” the Russian said after her victory. “I have to be aggressive but also consistent (in the final). “We just played at the US Open and she’s very consistent, she never misses, and if I make a lot of mistakes it’ll be an easy victory for her,” said Pavlyuchenkova.
Agencies
