For some players winning a Grand Slam title is the goal, whereas for others winning just one match is a huge achievement.
This year on the WTA Tour, the Grand Slam titles were won by four different players, culminating in Aryna Sabalenka lifting the US Open title.
Sabalenka had faced many Grand Slam heartbreaks already this year, with Madison Keys beating her in the Australian Open final, while Coco Gauff won Roland Garros after beating the world number one.
There is a current former top 20 WTA player who has lost nine consecutive Grand Slam matches, but that is nothing compared to the player who lost her first 14 matches at major tournaments.
Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty ImagesZhang Shuai: The WTA player who lost her first 14 Grand Slam matches
Zhang Shuai made her Grand Slam main draw debut when she was just 19 years old at the 2008 US Open, but did not win her first match at a major tournament until just two days before her 27th birthday.
In that time, Zhang lost 14 consecutive Grand Slam main draw matches, 12 of those in which she did not even win a single set.
The Chinese player was handed many challenging draws, with 11 of those 14 first-round defeats at Grand Slams coming against seeded players.
While Zhang could not find a win at a Grand Slam, she did have some success on the WTA Tour during that time.
This included Zhang winning her maiden WTA title in Guangzhou and reaching the top 30 in the rankings, enabling her to be seeded for the 2014 US Open.
Grand Slam TournamentZhang Shuai’s ResultUS Open 2008Lost in the first round to Svetlana Kuznetsova (3), 6-4 6-2Roland Garros 2010Lost in the first round to Nadia Petrova (19), 6-0 6-3Australian Open 2011Lost in the first round to Lucie Safarova (31), 7-5 4-6 6-1Roland Garros 2011Lost in the first round to Daniela Hantuchova (28), 6-3 6-3Wimbledon 2011Lost in the first round to Svetlana Kuznetsova (12), 3-6 6-3 6-4US Open 2011Lost in the first round to Dominika Cibulkova (14), 6-3 6-4Australian Open 2012Lost in the first round to Aleksandra Wozniak, 6-3 6-4Roland Garros 2012Lost in the first round to Angelique Kerber (10), 6-3 6-4Australian Open 2014Lost in the first round to Mona Barthel, 7-6(4) 6-3 Roland Garros 2014Lost in the first round to Agnieszka Radwanska (3), 6-3 6-0Wimbledon 2014Lost in the first round to Carla Suarez Navarro (15), 6-1 6-2US Open 2014Lost in the first round to Mona Barthel, 6-1 6-2Australian Open 2015Lost in the first round to Alize Cornet (19), 6-3 6-2Roland Garros 2015Lost in the first round to Lucie Hradecka, 6-3 6-0
Zhang fell back down the rankings in 2015, and ahead of the 2016 Australian Open was the world number 133.
This meant that she had to come through qualifying, which Zhang was able to do and set up a first-round main draw match with second seed Simona Halep.
The odds were stacked against Zhang due to her previous Grand Slam record and Halep’s pedigree on the WTA Tour.
However, Zhang was able to prove the doubters wrong and beat Halep, 6-4 6-3, to win a Grand Slam main draw match for the first time in her career at nearly 27 years old.
Zhang was incredibly emotional in her on-court interview on the Margaret Court Arena, and later revealed in her post-match press conference that she had considered retiring before finally getting her first Grand Slam win.
“Yeah, last few months I’m already 200, my ranking, so very tough,” Zhang said at the time. “I feeling very sad every day. I almost retire. “Yeah, last few months I’m already 200, my ranking, so very tough. I feeling very sad every day. I almost retire.
“But, you know, so many people help me, so give me the help. My coach, my parents, my team, also national team. My sponsor, always try to help me, give me more motivation.
“So, yeah, I’m training hard, more hard than before. Yeah, I didn’t think in two months I can win the top-two player. Feeling like dream coming true, yeah.”
This was only the start for Zhang, who would go on to beat Alize Cornet, Varvara Lepchenko and 15th seed Madison Keys to reach the Australian Open quarterfinals in a remarkable run.
Zhang’s Australian Open run would eventually come to an end in the quarterfinals against Johanna Konta, but she claimed that it felt like she had already won the tournament.
“Yeah, feeling so tired. Everything feeling very slow on court. Yeah,” Zhang said in her press conference after the match. “But in my heart I’m feeling I already win the tournament because I win seven match. Yeah, doesn’t matter win, lose today, just keep going.”
Zhang has reached one more Grand Slam quarterfinal since then at Wimbledon in 2019, and would go on to reach a career-high ranking of world number 22 in 2023.
She has found even more major success on the doubles courts, with Zhang winning two Grand Slam titles alongside Sam Stosur.
The other unwanted streak that Zhang Shuai went on in 2023 and 2024
Unfortunately for Zhang, that is not the only unwanted streak she has been on in her career, with the Chinese player suffering an even longer one in 2023 and 2024.
Just two weeks after reaching her career-high ranking in January 2023, Zhang would begin a 24-match losing streak.
Zhang’s unwanted record is one of the longest losing streaks in history, with only one WTA player losing more consecutive matches than she has.
This losing streak would last nearly 20 months, before Zhang was able to go on a similar resurgence to the one she achieved at the Australian Open in 2016.
After Zhang beat McCartney Kessler at the China Open, she would go on to beat Emma Navarro, Greet Minnen and Magdalena Frech to reach the quarterfinals of the WTA 1000 tournament.
One year later ahead of the 2025 edition of the China Open, Zhang is the world number 112 and has received a wildcard for this year’s event.
Zhang is defending 215 ranking points at the China Open this year, and will play a qualifier in her first round match.