Original title: French Open – Zhang Shuai saved 3 match points and was still reversed and lost to the Golden Flower Killer in the first round
In the early morning of May 25th, Beijing time, the 2022 French Open will continue the first round of women’s singles competition. After winning the first set and saving 3 match points in the deciding set, Chinese player Zhang Shuai was defeated by the 28th seed Giorgi 6-3/2-6/2-6 in the last 7 singles matches. He lost 6 of them and swallowed a 3-game losing streak in singles. Giorgi stopped the 7-game losing streak in the tour (excluding the Billie Jean Gold Cup), and won his first victory in this year’s clay court season. To the 6-game winning streak once morest Chinese players. At the same time, it also means that five Chinese golden flowers will compete in the French Open women’s singles main match this year, and only 19-year-old Zheng Qinwen will advance to the second round.
The 33-year-old veteran Zhang Shuai ushered in her 12th and 9th consecutive French Open women’s singles main match. Her previous best singles record at Roland Garros was the top 16 in 2020. Zhang Shuai faced the 30-year-old Italian player Giorgi in the first round, who lost all three matches on clay this season. The two had a confrontation before, but it was in Seoul in 2016. At that time, Zhang Shuai only lost 6 games to win.
In the first set, Zhang Shuai won five games in a row in a passive situation where he lost the first serving game and was 1-3 behind, and finally won the first set 6-3. At the break, Giorgi looked frustrated.
In the second set, following Giorgi easily kept his first serve game, the two started a break point battle. Although Zhang Shuai broke two consecutive serve games of Giorgi, he broke all four serve games in this set, so he lost the second set 2-6.
In the third set decider, when Zhang Shuai was 1-5 behind, he resolved three match points in Giorgi’s serve-winning game and realized the fourth break point of the game. Lu Kehui failed to keep his serve, and lost another set 2-6, which was reversed by Giorgi and lost 1-2, and stopped in the first round of the French Open women’s singles for two consecutive years. After the women’s singles match, Zhang Shuai will play with McNally as the No. 4 seed in the women’s doubles, and paired with Ma Hu as the mixed doubles top seed to continue to compete in Roland Garros.
