Zhang Shuai (tennis player)

Zhang Shuai
Zhang Shuai 2016 in New York
Nation:	People's Republic of China
Birthday:	January 21, 1989
Size:	177 cm
Weight:	66 kg
1st professional season:	2003
Playing hand:	Right, two-handed backhand
Trainer:	Liu Shuo
Prize money:	$ 6,442,955
singles
Career record:	479: 328
Career title:	2 WTA , 2 WTA Challenger, 21 ITF
Highest ranking:	23 (November 14, 2016)
Current placement:	35
Grand Slam record
Double
Career record:	233: 193
Career title:	8 WTA, 1 WTA Challenger, 8 ITF
Highest ranking:	9 (May 20, 2019)
Current placement:	21st
Grand Slam record
Mixed
Grand Slam record
Last update of the infobox: March 16, 2020
Sources: official player profiles at the ATP / WTA and ITF (see web links )

Zhang Shuai ( Chinese  張帥  /  张帅 ; born January 21, 1989 in Tianjin ) is a Chinese tennis player .

Career

Junior career and early years: 2003 to 2008

Zhang Shuai, whose father Zhang Zhi Qiang was a professional soccer player and her mother Wang Fen Quin was a basketball player, began playing tennis at her parents' club at the age of six. In 2003 she played her first tournament on the ITF Women's World Tennis Tour , and in early 2006 she won her first professional title. In the same year she won three more ITF tournaments, two of them in the $ 25,000 category, and made her debut in Beijing on the WTA tour after receiving a wild card from the organizers for qualification. Although she was eliminated in the first round, she was allowed to start in the main draw in Guangzhou , also given a wildcard, and lost in three sets against Anna Tschakwetadze in the first round .

In early 2007, Zhang competed for the first time in the qualification of a Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open , but failed at the start. After she subsequently had little success at ITF tournaments in America, she traveled back to China and won four tournaments there, including one of the $ 50,000 category in Guangzhou for the first time . Another tournament victory and two finals on the ITF tour followed, but at WTA level she remained unsuccessful in a main field. In 2008 Zhang was able to qualify for the main round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time at the US Open , but lost to Svetlana Kuznetsova at the start . At the end of 2009, she surprised in Beijing when she switched off world number one Dinara Safina with a wildcard and made it to the last sixteen, in which she was defeated by Marion Bartoli .

2009 to 2012

The following year, Zhang qualified for the first time at the French Open for the main draw, but lost to Nadja Petrowa . She then reached a final in an ITF tournament in the $ 75,000 category in Beijing and advanced to her first WTA semi-final in Guangzhou , where she failed to Alla Kudrjawzewa . By reaching another semi-final at an ITF tournament in the $ 100,000 category in Ningbo , she climbed into the top 100 of the tennis world rankings for the first time . In 2011, Zhang tried to establish himself on the WTA tour, but only with moderate success. Although she started in the main field of all four Grand Slam tournaments, she was always eliminated in the first round. She had her best result of the season in Copenhagen , where she reached the quarter-finals. In doubles she won her first WTA title alongside Kimiko Date -Krumm in Osaka, followed by two more in Oeiras in 2012 with Chuang Chia-jung and in Guangzhou with Tamarine Tanasugarn . In the same year she achieved the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in the doubles competition at the US Open , also at the side of Chuang; in singles she came only in Beijing beyond the first round and scored the final at the ITF tournament in the $ 100,000 category in Ningbo.

2013 and 2014

In 2013, Zhang initially focused more on the ITF tour and won a tournament in the $ 75,000 category in Beijing. At the end of the year, after a final victory over Vania King in Guangzhou , she surprisingly won her first WTA individual title, in which she did not drop a set during the entire tournament, and also scored the final in a WTA Challenger Series tournament in Ningbo the following week to which she was subject to Bojana Jovanovski . By winning another WTA challenger in Nanjing , where she won the final after Ayumi Morita had given up , she improved to position 51 in the world rankings at the end of the season. In 2014, Zhang played her first full year on the WTA tour and reached it including three semi-finals in Acapulco , Kuala Lumpur and Birmingham . She had her best individual result in Rome , where, after her second top 10 win in the second round against Petra Kvitová , she advanced to the quarter-finals, in which she was only stopped by Serena Williams . Although Zhang reached the top 30 in the ranking for a short time, she remained without a win in the four Grand Slam tournaments. Together with her compatriot Peng Shuai , she won her third WTA doubles title in Pattaya . In the Asian Games 2014 in Incheon she lost the final of the team competition with Duan Yingying , Zheng Jie and Zheng Saisai the team from Taiwan and won silver.

Crash and breakthrough: 2015 to 2018

After a weak 2015, in which Zhang only had one main round win at the WTA level and a quarter-finals on the ITF tour before her victory at the end of the season at the ITF tournament in the $ 100,000 category in Tokyo , she fell well out of the top 100 the world rankings. In 2016, however, she made an impressive return when she qualified as a qualifier at the Australian Open after 14 defeats in the first round, at the start against world number two Simona Halep, her first victory in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament and then up to the quarter-finals advanced in which she was beaten by Johanna Konta . At the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, she first defeated Timea Bacsinszky in the individual competition , before losing to Laura Siegemund in the second round . In the doubles competition , she competed with Peng Shuai; the two prevailed against Sania Mirza and Prarthana Thombare at the start , but were eliminated in the second round against Andrea Hlaváčková and Lucie Hradecká, who were sixth . By the end of the season, Zhang was able to reach two more semi-finals in Tokyo and Seoul as well as her first quarter-finals at a Premier Mandatory tournament in Beijing , where she was able to win against Simona Halep for the second time in the season before she was stopped again by Johanna Konta. Due to her good results, she also received a wildcard for the WTA Elite Trophy in Zhuhai. There she came after two preliminary round wins against Timea Bacsinszky and Tímea Babos to the semifinals, in which she failed to Petra Kvitová. The season not yet finished, she then defended her title in Tokyo and moved into the final at the WTA Challenger in Honolulu , which she lost to Catherine Bellis . At the end of the year she achieved her highest world ranking position to date with 23rd place.

In 2017, Zhang reached the quarter-finals for the first time in Doha after her third top 10 win against Garbiñe Muguruza , where she lost to Karolína Plíšková without a chance. Then she went through a longer phase with weak form, from which she only freed herself when she moved into the third round of the French Open . After she then triumphed in Nur-Sultan at an ITF tournament in the $ 100,000 category without losing a set, she returned to the WTA tour and scored the third round at the US Open before she won the Guangzhou tournament after defeating Aleksandra Krunić won the final for the second time since 2013 and celebrated her second WTA individual title. At the end of the season she won for the third time in a row in Tokyo and this time also won in Honolulu . Together with Lu Jingjing she qualified for the doubles competition of the WTA Elite Trophy 2017 , in which they reached the final, where they clearly lost to Duan Yingying and Han Xinyun .

In 2018, Zhang again achieved her best performances of the season in hard court tournaments on the Asian continent , with the exception of a semi-final in Prague on clay court. After a first round elimination at the US Open , she successively reached the semifinals in Hiroshima and Hong Kong and the third round in Wuhan and, after a three-set win against Angelique Kerber, the quarter-finals in Beijing , in which she lost to Naomi Osaka . In addition, she won three WTA doubles titles in the same year: Istanbul alongside Liang Chen , Hiroshima with Eri Hozumi and Hong Kong for the first time with Samantha Stosur . In New York she was also with John Peers for the first time in the semifinals of a mixed competition at a Grand Slam tournament. At the WTA Elite Trophy she was allowed to compete with a wildcard in the individual again after 2016, but retired without a win in the group stage after two defeats against Anastasija Sevastova and Garbiñe Muguruza. Nevertheless, she was able to finish in the top 50 of the ranking for the third time in a row this year.

Since 2019

In 2019, Zhang achieved the biggest success of her career to date with the title triumph in doubles at the Australian Open alongside Samantha Stosur at the start of the season ; in the final, the two prevailed against the second seeded Kristina Mladenovic and Tímea Babos. In the final of the Premier Mandatory Tournament in Miami they were defeated by Aryna Sabalenka and Elise Mertens . On the other hand, Zhang's individual performance fell significantly. In the first half of the season at WTA level, she never got past the second round. She achieved her best result at the WTA Challenger in Anning , where she advanced to the final, but had to admit defeat to her compatriot Zheng Saisai. It was not until Wimbledon that she reported back after defeating Caroline Wozniacki and entering her second Grand Slam quarter-finals, in which she failed against the eventual winner Simona Halep. By reaching the third round in New York and her fourth tournament victory at the end of the year in Tokyo , she was able to winter among the top 50 in the world rankings this season. In addition, she achieved her best world rankings in doubles in ninth place and qualified for the first time for the WTA Championships 2019 in Shenzhen together with Samantha Stosur . After two preliminary round victories over Gabriela Dabrowski and Xu Yifan as well as Barbora Krejčíková and Kateřina Siniaková they advanced together to the semi-finals, in which they were defeated this time against Babos and Mladenovic.

At the start of the 2020 season, she scored her third WTA final in Hobart , which she lost to Jelena Rybakina . At the subsequent Australian Open , she moved into the third round and lost there against the eventual winner Sofia Kenin .

In 2007, Zhang made her debut for the Chinese Fed Cup team in the 5-0 quarter-final defeat against Italy . Since then, she has contested 21 matches in singles and doubles for her country, of which she was able to win 13 (individual balance 7: 7).

Tournament victories

singles

No.	date	competition	category	Topping	Final opponent	Result
1.	21st September 2013	Guangzhou	WTA International	Hard court	Vania King	7: 6 1 , 6: 1
2.	3rd November 2013	Nanjing	WTA Challenger	Hard court	Ayumi Morita	6: 4, 0: 0 task
3.	23 September 2017	Guangzhou	WTA International	Hard court	Aleksandra Krunić	6: 2, 3: 6, 6: 2
4th	November 26, 2017	Honolulu	WTA Challenger	Hard court	Jang Su-jeong	0: 6, 6: 2, 6: 3

Double

No.	date	competition	category	Topping	Partner	Final opponents	Result
1.	October 16, 2011	Osaka	WTA International	Hard court	Kimiko Date Crooked	Vania King Jaroslawa Schwedowa	7: 5, 3: 6, [11: 9]
2.	May 5, 2012	Oeiras	WTA International	sand	Chuang Chia-young	Jaroslawa Schwedowa Galina Voskobojewa	4: 6, 6: 1, [11: 9]
3.	22nd September 2012	Guangzhou	WTA International	Hard court	Tamarine Tanasu yarn	Jarmila Gajdošová Monica Niculescu	2: 6, 6: 2, [10: 8]
4th	September 27, 2013	Ningbo	WTA Challenger	sand	Chan Yung-jan	Iryna Buryatschok Oksana Kalashnikova	6: 2, 6: 1
5.	2nd February 2014	Pattaya	WTA International	Hard court	Peng Shuai	Alla Kudrjawzewa Anastassija Rodionova	3: 6, 7: 6 5 , [10: 6]
6th	April 29, 2018	Istanbul	WTA International	sand	Liang Chen	Xenia Knoll Anna Smith	6: 4, 6: 4
7th	16th September 2018	Hiroshima	WTA International	Hard court	Eri Hozumi	Miyu Katō Makoto Ninomiya	6: 2, 6: 4
8th.	October 14, 2018	Hong Kong	WTA International	Hard court	Samantha Stosur	Shūko Aoyama Lidsija Marosawa	6: 4, 6: 4
9.	January 25, 2019	Australian Open	Grand Slam	Hard court	Samantha Stosur	Tímea Babos Kristina Mladenovic	6: 3, 6: 4

Performing in Grand Slam tournaments

singles

competition	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	Career
Australian Open	-	-	-	1	1	-	1	1	VF	2	2	3	3	VF
French Open	-	-	1	1	1	-	1	1	2	3	2	2		3
Wimbledon	-	-	-	1	-	-	1	-	1	1	1	VF		VF
US Open	1	-	-	1	-	-	1	-	3	3	1	3		3

Web links

Commons : Zhang Shuai  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• WTA-profile Zhang Shuai (English)
• ITF-profile Zhang Shuai (English)
• Fed Cup Statistics for Zhang Shuai (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Zhang Shuai Breaks Through Against Simona Halep, a No. 2 seed. In: nytimes.com. January 19, 2016, accessed on July 29, 2020 . 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Zhang is the family name here, Shuai is the first name.