Zhang claims 2nd slam win on birthday
Print Edition
QUALIFIER Zhang Shuai said she was living the dream yesterday after beating Alize Cornet for only her second ever grand slam win — on her birthday — to keep her remarkable Australian Open campaign alive.
Zhang, who had lost all 14 of her previous slam matches before this week, almost retired last year but after stunning world No. 2 Simona Halep in the first round, she followed up with a 6-3, 6-3 win over the 33rd-ranked Frenchwoman.
Zhang, Chinese compatriot of two-time major champion Li Na and ranked 100 places below Cornet at 133, said her sudden success, after years of failure at slam level, was hard to take in.
“It’s like a dream come true. I’m looking forward to the next match, I don’t want to stop right now, I want to keep winning,” said Zhang, who will play America’s Varvara Lepchenko in the third round.
Once ranked 30th in the world, 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 her team told her to give it one more shot at Melbourne Park this year, and now on her 27th birthday and she has ended up as the last Chinese player left in the singles draw.
Zhang said the upset win over Halep was “the No. 1 exciting thing” of her life, made all the more special by having her parents in the crowd watching for the first time in her career.
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