China’s Zhang Shuai’s remarkable run at the 2016 Australian Open continued at full throttle on Monday night in Melbourne as the 27-year-old reached the quarterfinals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory over last year’s semifinalist Madison Keys.
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“I haven’t played her since three, four years now”. This year I use her lucky locker.
“I want to keep winning”, said Zhang.
“I think on some shots I kind of just closed my eyes and kind of just slapped the ball”.
Victoria Azarenka is yet to drop a set at the Australian Open after cruising into the quarter-finals with victory over Barbora Strycova.
She has since beaten Simona Halep, the No. 2 player in the world, Alizé Cornet, a veteran who beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon in 2014, and now Lepchenko.
Zhang, who became the last player in the women’s draw to book a place in quarters, said she found it very hard to finish off Keys, who played through tears of pain in the final set after suffering a leg injury.
The Belarusian was in imperious form once again in Melbourne as she raced to a 6-2 6-4 win in 87 minutes, setting up a last-eight encounter with Angelique Kerber.
Ranked No.133, Zhang was 0-14 at the Slams before this run in Melbourne.
She’s now the first British player since Durie in 1983 to advance to the quarterfinals in Australia.
“I told Shuai that she was totally different from other Chinese girls”, he said yesterday. “They thought I would not win one match in the Grand Slam”.
The irony of Zhang revealing her caffeinated dreams to a roomful of reporters after midnight on Tuesday was lost on no one. “But today, maybe yes”.
The American number three, who bravely refused to retire and staggered around until Zhang completed her 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 win, said she needed a “magic pill” to cure an injury which is badly hampering her career.
“To play against Vika [Azarenka] is tough because you always try to do something more”. “So proud of me, so excited and happy”. That’s plenty good enough.
Keeping things calm for her is now his priority.
With China’s first grand slam champion Li Na having retired and her fellow trailblazer Zheng Jie looking set to follow, expectations of success were low in the world’s most populous nation coming into 2016.
Azarenka excited about the win…the Broncos win: A big Peyton Manning fan, Azarenka’s first question to Rennae Stubbs in her post-match interview was to inquire whether the Denver Broncos beat the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game.
“It’s very exciting. I don’t want to stop”.
The match was strewn with unforced errors from both players, with Keys notching up 51 compared to Zhang’s 30, which proved to be the difference in the end.
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But her serial failure at grand slams and a horror 2015 in which she fell eight times in the first round and six times in qualifying convinced her it was time to call it quits. “But I felt Zhang had the mental side, the psychology”, Liu said.
