Zheng Jie snaps back at Petra Martic to secure semi-final spot – WANLIMA Women’s Open 2011
A local tennis star Zheng Jie ricocheted to upset fourth seeded Croat Petra Martic at the WANLIMA International Women’s Open 2011, a WTA International event held on the hard courts in Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China. She
registered a 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 success over the Split native, Martic to advance into the last four on Thursday.
20-year-old Martic flashed into the opening set to earn a breadstick but ran out of steam afterwards. Zheng on the other hand went into overdrive mode to pull out victories in the following two sets. The Chinese not only advanced
into the final four but also took lead in the head-to-head series by 1-0 against Martic.
The seed made quick in-roads after entering the Chinese hard courts. She unleashed flurry of groundstrokes to reel off first three games in a row before Zheng showed up on score board. After this, Martic continued hammering groundstrokes
to wipe out proceeding three games to earn a breadstick.
The Croat carried her ways in the second set and after bagging the first blood, she went 4-2 up. However, she ran out of gas afterwards and lost her track.
The Chinese with the help from the supportive crowd re-gathered her energy and succeeded in snatching her break back in the eighth game to tie the scores at 4-4. Zheng then maintained focused in the match and strike out next two
games to seal the equaliser by winning six games to four.
28-year-old Chinese raised the bar of her game in the final set. She fended off both breakpoints faced and cashed in on the only breakpoint opportunity to her advantage in the fourth game to clinch the decider with a 6-3 victory.
The Chinese took full advantage of the five double faults Martic spilled and clobbered a much better first serve share of 84 percent as compared to Croat’s 56 percent. She also earned a magnificent 62 percent win on it and fended
off eight out of eleven breakpoints faced. Zheng put the cherry on the match by converting three out of five breakpoint chances to her advantage.
Zheng will square off against the winner of the match between eighth seeded Slovak Magdalena Rybarikova and second seeded Australian Jarmila Gajdosova.
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