The Toray Pan Pacific Open lost its top two seeds on Wednesday as the no. 1 seed, Paula Badosa and the second seed, Caroline Garcia lost their respective second-round matches. Incidentally, both lost to Chinese opponents. Qinwen Zheng took out the Spaniard , 6-3, 6-2 in an hour and 18 minutes.
Zheng finished the match with 17 winners, 11 more than Badosa’s six. After her win, Zheng shared with the media, “It was a big match for me. Even though the score was like this, there were a lot of emotions for me in this match and I’m very proud of myself.
It’s not a surprise – I always knew I had the level, I just had to make it”. In the quarter-finals, Zheng will play Claire Liu. The American defeated Elise Mertens, 6-4, 6-1 in their round- of-16 match in an hour and 24 minutes.
Shuai Zhang, meanwhile, beat Garcia 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(5) in two hours and 30 minutes. In the process, Zhang also saved a match point. Garcia had 67 winners over three times as many as Zhang’s 21. But where Zhang had 25 unforced errors, the Frenchwoman finished with almost twice as many unforced errors of her own, at 49.
Toray Pan Pacific Open: Liudmila Samsonova downs Elena Rybakina
In the quarters, Zhang will play either Karolina Pliskova or Petra Kvitova. Lastly, Garbine Muguruza also clinched a spot in the quarter-finals of the Toray Pan Pacific Open.
The Spaniard, seeded third, won against Despina Papamichail, 6-4 6-2 in an hour and 25 minutes. She will play either Liudmila Samsonova or Xinyu Wang. Earlier, Samsonova upset eighth seed Elena Rybakina, 6-2, 6-4 in the first round.