Zheng Jie ousts Alberta Brianti to reach the 2nd round – WANLIMA Women’s Open 2011
Chinese tennis pro Zheng Jie stunned number six seed Alberta Brianti with an impressive 7-6 (3), 6-4 victory on Tuesday as she booked her place in the second round of 2011 WANLIMA International Women’s Open here in Guangzhou, China.
Unseeded at the Women’s Tennis Association tournament, Zheng looked in terrific form as she surprised a player ranked much higher than herself to move ahead. Forcing errors from her opponent, she displayed very competitive tennis
in a match that lasted for 2 hours and 1 minute on the hard courts of Guangzhou.
Striking the ball really hard from deep behind the baseline, Zheng has a very strong baseline game. Running on the court like a hare, she is agile and a good mover. Her ability to control her nerves in pressure circumstances gives
her an added advantage over rest of the contestants at the tournament. The Chinese will be hoping to maintain her current form in her upcoming matches as well to claim her first ever WTA title.
Brianti, who is ranked 58th in the world, had her chances in the match but her poor execution let her down big time as she managed to convert only four out of nine break points in the match. A large number of unforced
errors from the Italian did not help the cause either. Brianti made seven costly double faults in the match, which of course player its part in deciding the outcome.
The opening set was played on an extremely competitive note as both players exchanged sever breaks at regular intervals. Brianti had a bright start to the match a she took an early 3-1 lead to put herself in the driving position.
Zheng was also up for the challenge and she replied strongly to break straight back. Down 5-6 on a break of serve, she clinched three straight points to force the set into a tie-breaker. Outplaying her rival, she bagged it with a scoreline of 7-4 to take 1-0
set score lead.
World number 83 Zheng continued to play aggressively in the second set as well. Breaking the serve at crucial stages, she dented her opponent’s confidence levels. With a blazing forehand winner down the line, she made a couple
of match points available to her and then converted the first one to seal an important victory.
Zheng served brilliantly and she hit 81 per cent of her first serves, which allowed her to control rallies from the baseline. Claiming 48 per cent of the points at receiving end, she returned the serve incredibly well.
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