(Tennis news) In the third round, Jabeur will face Marie Bouzkova, the 31st seed, after edging through Camila Osorio and Linda Noskova. In the opening set, the Tunisian fell behind 4-1 but rallied to force a tiebreaker by saving a set point. She dropped the following several games, though, and the set was lost.
Despite squandering a set chance and failing to serve out the set at 5-4, Jabeur was still able to win the second set in the tie-break. In the third set, she lost a commanding early advantage before taking another serve break to take control. She won 5-7, 7-6(5), 6-3 as a result, which put an end to the tournament.
In the meanwhile, Zheng defeated Kaia Kanepi and Nadia Podoroska to advance to the third round, where she faced Lucia Bronzetti. The young Chinese player came back to win the opening set after falling behind by a break.
In the second set, Zheng secured a break of service to go 4-3 up, but Bronzetti turned the tables on her by winning three straight games to take the set. The momentum switched in favour of the latter when the former led 2-0 in the decisive match.
To go 4-2 up, Bronzetti won four games in a row. Zheng, though, fought valiantly to turn the tide and won the final four games of the match to secure a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victory.
Head-to-Head
The head-to-head score is Zheng 1, Jabeur 0. Following the Tunisian’s mid-match retirement at the 2022 Canadian Open, she prevailed in their prior meeting.
Predictions
Both had been pushed to three sets in their last two encounters and have thus far in this tournament looked rather weak. In the prior round, the pair also made a lot of mistakes before ultimately winning.
Particularly, Jabeur has come out as more frightened, and at the beginning of the competition, he was even sick. Due to an injury, she was forced to forfeit her earlier match against Zheng, ending it in a whimper.
With her aggressive style of tennis, Zheng prefers to take the lead whereas Jabeur depends more on her elegance. However, the Tunisian may also play pretty steadily from the baseline. As for the Chinese, she’ll need to be careful with her serve because it can quickly turn from an asset to a liability.
Zheng has lost her last four games against players ranked in the top 10, but she may be able to reverse the trend this time around against Jabeur. The match may go any way based on their current form, but the 20-year-old appears poised to advance to her maiden Grand Slam quarterfinal.
Zheng to win in 3 sets.
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