{"id":926576,"date":"2026-10-09T13:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/926576\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T13:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:38:10","slug":"zhengs-late-season-surge-continues-with-win-over-svitolina-to-reach-beijing-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/926576\/","title":{"rendered":"Zheng\u2019s late-season surge continues with win over Svitolina to reach Beijing semis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>China\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wtatennis.com\/players\/328120\/qinwen-zheng\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zheng Qinwen <\/a>advanced to the semifinals of the China Open WTA 1000 in Beijing with a 6-3, 7-6 (8-6) upset victory over No. 6 seed Elina Svitolina.<\/p>\n<p>In her first tournament since reaching the US Open quarterfinals as a qualifier, Zheng continued her strong late-season run, winning 12 of her last 13 matches on tour.<\/p>\n<p>Zheng opened the match with a break of serve to take a 2-0 lead and broke twice more to claim the first set 6-3. The second set was much closer, with neither player dropping serve, forcing a tiebreak. Zheng converted her second match point to complete the victory in 1 hour, 47 minutes.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Look what it means \ud83d\udcaa Zheng Qinwen secures a spot in the semifinal in Beijing! That reaction \ud83e\udd29 #ChinaOpen https:\/\/t.co\/yTQQn23rub<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 wta (@WTA) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/WTA\/status\/2108484761937129503?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">October 9, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was a really great win for me,&#8221; Zheng told the media after the match. &#8220;I think she also play her best tennis. I&#8217;m just happy to have lot of winners during the match, and at the end, be brave in important moment. I finish with really good winners.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Eight of Zheng&#8217;s 12 recent victories have come in three sets. She credited the hard work during a training block she put in before the US Open for her recent success.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What I did in that training block is still unforgettable,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been facing a lot of tough physical conditions. Not only the weather, the training, but mentally. I needed that training block. I need to accept when the coach, they are hard to me on court. I remember Pere, he say to me,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Right now you are just 140 in the ranking. So now you need to listen to me more on court because you are not the top 10 you were. I was really angry inside. But I have to calm down and say yes, that&#8217;s the reality. Seems like the effort pays off. Honestly, I didn&#8217;t expect that, all this coming, because I&#8217;m just really focused on the present.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The victory took Zheng to her fourth career WTA 1000 semifinal and her third on Chinese soil, following appearances in Beijing and Wuhan in 2024. The former world No. 4 is projected to return to the top 40 in the WTA PIF Rankings after falling to No. 160 in June.<\/p>\n<p>Zheng has become the third wild-card entry to reach the semifinals, following Shuai Peng in 2006 and Qiang Wang in 2018. She is also the third Chinese player to reach the tournament&#8217;s semifinals more than once, after Li Na and Peng.<\/p>\n<p>Zheng will face the winner of the quarterfinal between No. 8 seed Swiatek and No. 13 seed Elise Mertens.\u00a0The 24-year-old won her only previous meeting with Mertens and holds a 2-7 record against Swiatek.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think those important two matches I beat [Swiatek] is because I was more consistent&#8221; Zheng said. &#8220;I remember those matches when I lost against her, it&#8217;s because she&#8217;s more consistent than me. We were really close. We face each other lot of times. Doesn&#8217;t matter who I face. I&#8217;m sure if they arrive to semifinal, they will show up with their best tennis. I&#8217;m just going to stay there and play my tennis and let&#8217;s see what&#8217;s going to happen.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Zheng Qinwen advanced to the semifinals of the China Open WTA 1000 in Beijing with a 6-3,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":["post-926576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}