There were only three seeds in the quarterfinals of the Guangzhou Open and none of them advanced to the semis, falling to Yvonne Meusburger, Zheng Jie and Vania King. This will be the first WTA semifinals this year without seeded players.
Yvonne Meusburger, ranked 64th, after falling behind in the first set 3-4 won eight straight games and ended the match 6-4 6-1 against seed No.2 Alize Cornet in one hour and 51 minutes. A three-set thriller was played between 124th-ranked Vania King and eighth seed Monica Puig, which lasted for two and a half hours. King was behind 1-6 2-5 but managed to reverse the situation and close the match 1-6 7-5 7-6(5). Seed No.3 and last year’s runner-up Laura Robson was also stunned, losing to Zheng Jie 1-6 7-6(6) 6-2 in two hours and 16 minutes. This will be the fourth semifinal at the Guangzhou Open for Zheng, after 2005, 2008 and 2011.
The last and the least dramatic today’s match was between unseeded Zhang Shuai and Johanna Konta. Zhang eliminated Konta 7-5 6-3 in one hour and 40 minutes.
Semifinal pairs: Vania King vs. Zheng Jie and Zhang Shuai vs. Yvonne Meusburger. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)
