Chinese players WTA tour dream on track in face of coronavirus scare

Chinese players WTA tour dream on track in face of coronavirus scare

Chinese tennis players fight off adverse off court conditions to keep WTA dream on track

 

The outbreak of the coronavirus has hit many worldwide sporting events and athletes alike. Chinese sports has taken a big beating with some major sports events having been cancelled or postponed, while, some countries have put restrictions on the Chinese travel plans.

In that sense World No.37 Zheng Saisai is lucky that she is able to compete on the WTA Tour while back home the Xi'an Open has been called off and the Chinese Davis Cup team had to withdraw.

Asked whether she feels that the Chinese athletes have taken the biggest hit of the worldwide scare Zheng said: “I don't know, I think it's just trying to protect athletes, you know, not to affect so much. I really, I don't know, but I just feel, you know, many athlete was working pretty hard and right now with the situation is they can only stay home. So just hope that everything's going to go well very soon and people start to working normal,”

The 26-year-old, a surprise quarter-finalist at the Qatar Total Open, said the Chinese are very ‘pretty strong’ and that ‘people are working pretty hard and try(ing) to find a solution’.

 “It's a pretty sad what's going on right now and it's not looking great, but I mean our Chinese are pretty strong, we always stick together, always going to be together in all these tough moments, just have to be patient,” said Zheng in  response to a question.

Asked if the travel restriction on Chinese nationals has affected her travel plans she said: “I was in Dubai last week, so was fine. Yeah, you know, you see every day some news, it's pretty sad, you know, this start to growing. And hopefully -- I think people are working pretty hard and try to find a solution.”

“It didn't really (affect) me, because I was always traveling for the tournaments, so it didn't bother me so much,” she added.

Zheng’s extended run of three matches at the WTA Tour event was brought to an end by ninth seed Aryna Sabalenka on Thursday. The Belarusian won 3-6, 7-6, 6-3 to advance to the semi-final of the Premier 5 event.

On Wednesday night, the Chinese No.2 had pocketed a thrilling 3-6, 6-3, and 6-4 comeback win over World No.6 Kiki Bertens of The Netherlands.

The good run in Qatar means that Zheng has reached the quarter-finals of the WTA event for the first time in four years.

It was also her 6th career win over world's top-10 players following her victories over Karolina Pliskova (2016), Angelique Kerber (2016), Agnieszka Radwanska (2016), Elina Svitolina (2017) and Sabalenka (2019).

Zheng is now breathing down her compatriot Wang Qiang's neck as her latest heroics in Doha is expected to see her overtake Zhang Shuai to become the second highest-ranked tennis player in China, who has so far won three career singles title.