WTA Finals qualifier Mirra Andreeva<\/a> taking on rising star Nikola Bartunkova for a spot in the championship match. In the second semifinal on Saturday, home favorite Zheng Qinwen will play Elise Mertens.<\/p>\nBut before we get to those matches, we’re looking back on the best shots from the second week in Beijing.<\/p>\n
We’ve rounded up our favorites from Week 2, including highlights from Sun Xinran, Jelena Ostapenko and Sara Bejlek. Check them out below, and make sure to vote for your WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz shot of the week at the bottom.<\/p>\n
Sun Xinran’s running forehand pass<\/p>\n
Sun caught the attention of many fans this week, both for her two impressive wins in her WTA debut and sparkling shots like this one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Serving to take a 3-2 lead against Coco Gauff, Sun returned a booming crosscourt backhand from Gauff, then sprinted to the service line and hit a running forehand pass.<\/p>\n
Gauff won the match 7-5, 6-1.<\/p>\n
‘She’s come to play tonight’: Sun fires stunning forehand pass against Gauff in Beijing<\/p>\n
Jelena Ostapenko’s pickup volley off her shoelaces<\/p>\n
Serving at 2-4, 15-all in the decisive third set against Mertens, Ostapenko dictated the point from the net, forcing Mertens to defend from behind the baseline. Mertens stayed in the point with some stellar returns, but Ostapenko won it with a pickup volley off her shoelaces.<\/p>\n
Mertens ended up playing better down the stretch, pulling out the 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 win.<\/p>\n
Hot shot: Jelena Ostapenko’s pickup volley off her shoelaces in Beijing<\/p>\n
Marie Bouzkova’s counter drop shot on the run<\/p>\n
Marie Bouzkova showed off her incredible court coverage and variety in this point against Zheng, finishing it off with a sweet counter drop shot.<\/p>\n
Zheng outlasted Bouzkova 7-6 (3), 4-6, 7-5.<\/p>\n
Hot shot: Marie Bouzkova covers the court in Beijing, finds the counterdrop<\/p>\n
Kamilla Rakhimova’s full-stretch backhand winner<\/p>\n
Iva Jovic gave Kamilla Rakhimova all she could handle in this point, both with punishing blows and awkward spins. But Rakhimova won the battle of angles with a full-stretch backhand winner into the open court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jovic won the match 6-1, 7-5.<\/p>\n
Hot shot: Kamilla Rakhimova finds the angle at full stretch in Beijing<\/p>\n
Sara Bejlek’s pass down the line<\/p>\n
Bejlek’s speed and anticipation are her hallmarks, and they won her this point against Naomi Osaka.<\/p>\n
Leading 4-3 in the first set, on Osaka’s serve, Bejlek returned a combination of powerful backhands and forehands before winning the point with a remarkable pass down the line.<\/p>\n
Osaka won the match 7-6 (4), 6-4.<\/p>\n
‘The mind-reader!’ Bejlek foils Osaka with superb anticipation in Beijing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We’ve reached the business end of the China Open, the second-to-last WTA 1000 tournament of the season. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1959],"class_list":["post-878670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}