{"id":696611,"date":"2026-07-17T12:36:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696611\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T12:36:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:36:27","slug":"chinese-star-zheng-qinwen-claims-first-wta-tour-quarter-final-spot-in-a-year-at-athens-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/696611\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese star Zheng Qinwen claims first WTA Tour quarter-final spot in a year at Athens Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Zheng Qinwen fired 13 aces to ease into the quarter-finals of the Athens Open, reaching her first tour-level quarter-final in a year, while expressing her desire to become a more well-rounded player.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The Paris Olympics champion cruised past Australia\u2019s Elena Micic 6-4, 6-1 in the second round of the WTA 250 event in the early hours of Thursday, lifting her up the WTA rankings to No 121.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Zheng, who needs to win the tournament in Greece to qualify for the main draw of the coming US Open, will face either Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic, the world No 32, or France\u2019s 204th-ranked Carole Monnet on Friday for a place in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The match proved far less challenging than Zheng\u2019s opening round win against Spain\u2019s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, with the 22-year-old Micic registering only one main-draw win on the WTA tour and ranked outside the top 250.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The Chinese star secured an early break in the opening set. Both players then held serve until the end of the set, which Zheng won 6-4 on the strength of that single break.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Zheng Qinwen\u2019s rankings had fallen 131 places from a high of world No 4. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/9e2eed39-bbf3-4fd8-8cd6-6200938902a4_f8de9ed4.jpg\" title=\"Zheng Qinwen\u2019s rankings had fallen 131 places from a high of world No 4. Photo: AP\"\/>Zheng Qinwen\u2019s rankings had fallen 131 places from a high of world No 4. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Zheng broke again at the start of the second set, which quickly turned into a one-sided affair as she held and broke repeatedly to sweep the set 6-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zheng Qinwen fired 13 aces to ease into the quarter-finals of the Athens Open, reaching her first tour-level&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[230278,428,30544,177094,17917,231527,819,2043,230281,87074,231528,218007,640,101,118,56,54,55,6545,137827],"class_list":["post-696611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-athens-open","tag-australia","tag-barbora-krejcikova","tag-carole-monnet","tag-czech-republic","tag-elena-micic","tag-france","tag-greece","tag-hubei","tag-jessica-bouzas-maneiro","tag-paris-olympics","tag-queens-club","tag-spain","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-open","tag-zheng-qinwen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}