Mirra Andreeva fought hard and had massive chances, but the Russian wasn't able to overcome home favorite Qinwen Zheng at the 2024 China Open.
Andreeva is one of the smartest tennis players on the WTA Tour, and proof of that is simply how she manages to trouble some of the best players in the world while lacking clear weapons to do so.
The 17-year-old Russian is tremendously skilled and great at what she does, but she doesn't have signature weapons. Her serve isn't particularly deadly, and neither does she generally generate lots of pace on her shots from the baseline.
She's very precise with her shots, though, and can create superb angles, which is how she wins most of her points. It's about making the other player uncomfortable, and she made Zheng quite uncomfortable in their quarter-final meeting at the WTA 1000 event in Beijing.
The start of the match featured the Russian jumping out to an early lead, which became a double break lead very quickly at 4-0. Zheng couldn't put the ball into the court, which is not that unusual for her.
She tends to be quite streaky with everything she does, and this match was the epitome of that. After that dreadful start, Zheng started to heat up, literally. She broke back to make it 4-1 and then broke back once more to make it 4-4.
Andreeva was no match for Zheng when the Chinese player was hitting at her best because Zheng has much more power in her shots. The home hero then even broke for the 5-4 lead and had a chance to close out the opening set, but she didn't, as the Russian proved unshakeable once more.
Andreeva then showed just how clutch she can be by holding her serve and breaking Zheng to win the opening set 7-5. In fairness, the Chinese player greatly helped her with her shaky serving, which is, unfortunately, a staple of her game.
Zheng is a consistent serve away from being in the Top 3 in the world, and it's something that keeps showing up from time to time. It showed up in a major way in that opening set against Andreeva, as Zheng had only three aces but six double faults.
That was not a good enough mark, but she also needed to be much better from the baseline. That's what happened early in the second set, as Zheng smashed Andreeva to take a 3-0 lead with two breaks in hand.
Andreeva has been struggling with her first serve for much of the match and asked for a medical timeout in between sets. Despite not serving all too well again, Zheng kept utterly destroying Andreeva from the baseline, beating her 6-0 in the second set.
The Russian just had nothing to answer. The final set opened with some crazy scenes as Andreeva broke immediately to take a 2-0 lead but then got broken immediately. Zheng then held for the 2-2 score as the tension was palpable.
Andreeva seemingly handled it better, breaking once more to take a 4-2 lead. Zheng was still having issues with her serve, unable to hit her first serve at all, but Andreeva couldn't serve well either, so Zheng broke back once more to get back on serve.
Zheng then broke for the 5-4 lead and held it to win the match 5-7, 6-0, 6-4 to reach the 2024 China Open semi-finals.