Qinwen Zheng managed to advance to the second round of the US Open on Monday after recovering from losing the first set. Meanwhile, her compatriots Zhang Junchen and Wang Siyou were defeated in the first round of the tournament in New York.
Zheng, who qualified due to injury issues that lowered her ranking to world No. 121, defeated 16-year-old Russian qualifier Kristina Lyutova with a score of 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.
Lyutova took control in the first set and maintained the advantage by winning it 6-4, but the 2024 Olympic champion raised her level of play starting from the second set, winning it 6-3, and then dominating the deciding set with a score of 6-1.
Zheng recorded ten aces and won 75 percent of her first serves. She converted six out of 16 break opportunities and won 93 points against Lyutova's 75 points.
This victory extended Zheng's winning streak at Flushing Meadows to four matches after she beat Yu Xiaodi, Clara Burel, and Elena Pridankina in the qualifying rounds. In the second round, she is scheduled to play either Belinda Bencic from Switzerland or Yulia Putintseva from Kazakhstan.
In the men's singles draw, Shang lost the advantage two sets to one as Argentinian Marco Trungelliti managed to come back into the match and win in five sets.
Shang confidently won the first set 6-0, but Trungelliti leveled the odds by winning the second set in a tie-break 7-6(5). The Chinese player decisively responded with a third-set victory 6-1. Nevertheless, his 36-year-old opponent turned the tide, winning the last two sets 6-3 and 6-4 to secure the victory.
Wang was also eliminated from the tournament after losing 6-2, 6-3 to Polish Iga Świątek. The eighth seed spent an hour and 28 minutes to secure a two-set victory at the Louis Armstrong Stadium.
Świątek initially established a 3-1 lead in the first set, then added another break to win it 6-2. Wang kept pace with the 2022 US Open champion for the first seven games of the second set, but Świątek managed to break in the eighth game and then closed out the match with a serve.
The Polish star, who aims to win her seventh Grand Slam title, will face her Argentinian opponent Nadia Podoroska in the second round.