Zheng Qinwen moves into Round 3 after Kalinskaya retires

For Zheng Qinwen, playing at the China Open meant playing with an entire arena behind her.

The cheers began at the coin toss and followed her through every point, with “Go Qinwen! Jiayou!” echoing throughout Diamond Court for nearly two and a half hours.

The crowd roared when Zheng won points, gasped when she lost them and grew so loud that the public-address announcer, chair umpire and even Zheng herself tried to settle them down.

And the fans certainly had plenty to cheer about. Neck-and-neck sets ended suddenly when No. 15 seed Anna Kalinskaya retired during the final set due to illness. 

Zheng advanced to the third round with the  6-7(4), 6-4, 3-0 (ret.) victory, and she will face a new opponent in Marie Bouzkova for the first time.

Zheng took a 5-3 lead in the first set, but Kalinskaya battled back to force a tiebreak and take the opening set. The setback forced Zheng to regroup as she tried to shift her mindset for the second set.

“It was not easy, especially when I was 5-3 up, then I couldn’t get the first set,” the 23-year-old Zheng said. “So, it takes a while to change a bit of the mentality in the second set. I was just happy that I’m able to get the match, even if she retired.”

In a match where games went back and forth, breaking a serve first was crucial to succeed. 

Zheng started the third set by winning her third break point of the night, breaking Kalinskaya after a double fault on the last point. 

Kalinskaya took a medical timeout after Game 1 and returned with wavering confidence and dwindling stamina. Meanwhile, Zheng came back with a vengeance, breaking Kalinskaya for the fourth and final time to claim three consecutive games before Kalinskaya retired. 

Zheng tallied 13 aces but also clocked in six double faults. 

“For the serve, I don’t see any ups and downs,” Zheng said. “There were a couple of double faults, then several aces. They were offset, so I can accept the results.”

After the first set began with back-and-forth games, the question was who would break first. The shift finally came late in the first set, when Zheng broke Kalinskaya for a 5-3 lead. But Kalinskaya didn’t roll over, rallying to break the next game in an attempt to keep Zheng from taking the set. The two went to a tiebreak, where Kalinskaya prevailed.

After falling in the opening set, Zheng put everything into her second set. A well-placed cut shot in Game 7 gave her the advantage, and Zheng capitalized to break Kalinskaya and take the lead, 4-3. 

This was the only break in the set, and it ultimately allowed Zheng to claim it. 

The women weren’t just battling each other to advance; they were also fighting the weather. Windy conditions and the late afternoon sun made it hard to have a calm environment to play in. 

“It's like playing from day to night,” Zheng said of the sun setting between sets. “There's a big temperature gap. When I'm playing in the day, the first match, there was half sunlight. It wasn’t very clear for me to see the ball.”

By Isabel Kirkwood