Zhang Shuai came through qualifying to reach the main draw in Merida and is now into the quarterfinals after knocking off defending champion Emma Navarro 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour and 23 minutes on Thursday night. She joined Jasmine Paolini, who raced past Priscilla Hon 6-0, 6-2 in 71 minutes in the first night-session match on Estadio.<\/p>\n
Merida: Scores<\/a> | Draws<\/a> | Order of play<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The 37-year-old rallied from a break down in each set. She trailed 4-1 in the opener before reeling off five straight games to close out the set and then won five of the last six from 3-1 down in the second to secure her place in the last eight. It\u2019s her third win in three meetings with Navarro at the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz level.<\/p>\n As for why she matches up so well against the American, Zhang said she\u2019s not sure herself.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t really know because during the match I was thinking the same question,\u201d Zhang said in her on-court interview. \u201cI didn\u2019t do anything special. Maybe I like (how she hits) her balls and she doesn\u2019t like my balls. Yeah, I don\u2019t really know, but I just played my game, tried to focus on myself and that was a great match, 4-1 down and 3-1 down in the second set.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s Zhang\u2019s first WTA singles quarterfinal since reaching the semis on home soil in Guangzhou last October, and it comes on the heels of four consecutive straight-set wins between qualifying and the main draw.<\/p>\n On Thursday, she got the job done with clean ball striking and efficient serving, finishing with 17 winners to just 10 unforced errors while winning 68% of her first-serve points and 57% on her second serve.<\/p>\n Her reward for earning her first Top 20 victory since Wuhan last October — also against Navarro — is a meeting with fellow qualifier Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva in the quarterfinals. The two have yet to face one another at the WTA level.<\/p>\n Paolini wins on tournament debut in Merida<\/p>\n Paolini was able to score a straight-sets victory of her own earlier in the evening, defeating Hon to advance to her first quarterfinal of the season.<\/p>\n The top seed had last reached a quarterfinal in October in Ningbo, but it was clear from the opening point she had both the touch and good fortune needed to move past the lucky loser. A net cord that dropped onto Hon\u2019s side of the court gave Paolini the first point of the match, and after holding, she broke the Australian for a 2-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n That sparked an eight-game run to open the match. Hon broke early in the second set to get on the board and close the gap to 2-1, but the Italian won four of the final five games to close out a routine victory in her Merida debut.<\/p>\n \u201cUsually, you always play in the same places in tennis, but I\u2019m so happy to visit a new place,\u201d Paolini said in her on-court interview. \u201cTournaments in Mexico are always nice, organized and the crowds are really passionate, so I\u2019m happy to be back in Mexico and the first time in Merida.\u201d<\/p>\n The World No. 7 entered the tournament late as a wild card, looking to regain momentum after losing both of her opening matches during the Middle East swing, dropping her record to 3-7 in her last 10 matches.<\/p>\n Despite the recent skid, Paolini played disciplined tennis on Thursday, winning by keeping the ball in play and backing it up with a strong second serve. She finished with 13 winners to 14 unforced errors and won 90% (9 of 10) of her second-serve points.<\/p>\n Hon meanwhile struggled on serve throughout the match, landing just 43% of her first serves and winning 55% of those points. She managed only 22% (6 of 27) on her second serve, allowing Paolini to convert 6 of 11 break points.<\/p>\n With the win, Paolini moves into the quarterfinals to face an in-form Katie Boulter. Paolini leads the head-to-head 3-2 and has won the past two meetings, both in straight sets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zhang Shuai came through qualifying to reach the main draw in Merida and is now into the quarterfinals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,661,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-792267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116141965004007810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}