China’s tennis star Wang Xinyu secured a dramatic comeback victory in the quarterfinals of the Wuhan Open, defeating Ekaterina Alexandrova 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (6) in a match that lasted nearly three hours.
This victory marks Wang’s first time reaching the semifinals of a WTA 1000 event. “I’m super happy that I made it to my first semifinal in China. It’s extra special feeling for me playing in front of the home crowd and I really enjoyed it,” Wang said afterward.
The match started with both players fiercely breaking each other over the first seven games. Alexandrova eventually held serve in the eighth game and clinched the first set 6-4. The second set was closely contested, with neither player giving much ground until Wang achieved a crucial break toward the end, winning the set 7-5 to level the contest.
In the final set, Wang faced a challenge after double-faulting twice in the third game, allowing Alexandrova to break her serve. The Russian held a match point in the ninth game, but Wang saved it, breaking back in the tenth game during Alexandrova’s service game, leveling the score at 5-5. Both players then held their serves, sending the match into a decisive tiebreak.
In the deciding tiebreak, Wang took an early 5-0 lead, but the Russian grabbed six consecutive points in a row to battle back and reach the match point first. Under pressure, Wang saved two match points to regain control and finally won the tiebreak after Alexandrova’s double-faults, sealing an incredible comeback.
“There were some ups and downs in the match. She played very well, and I felt a lot of pressure from her returns. In the tiebreak in the third set, it was a rollercoaster tiebreak. It was just down to the last two points,” Wang said.
“I remember the second match point. It was 5-6 in the tiebreak before I served. I saw the photographers were running to the other side. They wanted to capture the end of the match,” added Wang, who tenaciously overturned the match in spite of the photographers’ predictions.
On Wang’s road to the semifinals in Wuhan, she had also downed America’s Caroline Dolehide and second-seeded Jessica Pegula, which she had not expected to achieve before the tournament started.
“In recent weeks on hard courts, I was losing matches. I wasn’t at a level where I felt 100 percent confident,” Wang noted. “In the doubles in the French Open and in the Olympics, all of those breakthroughs came as a little bit of a surprise. I wasn’t really expecting it.”
“I think under such conditions, I might be able to make a breakthrough under these circumstances when I wasn’t really expecting it,” said Wang reflecting on her incredible season. “I will just focus on each match. I just like to enjoy each match to accumulate my experiences on that basis.”