Zhang Shuai

Zhang Shuai

Country (sports)	People's Republic of China
Residence	Tianjin, China
Height	1.76 m (5 ft 9+1⁄2 in)
Plays	right; two-handed backhand
Prize money	US $97,884
Singles
Career record	111–63
Career titles	0 WTA, 12 ITF
Highest ranking	132 (23 July 2007)
Grand Slam singles results
Australian Open	-
French Open	-
Wimbledon	-
US Open	first round (2008)
Doubles
Career record	44–42
Career titles	0 WTA, 3 ITF
Highest ranking	196 (23 July 2007)
Last updated on: 26 August 2008.

Zhang Shuai (born 21 January 1989 in Tianjin, China) is a professional female tennis player from China. As of 12 October 2009, she is the fourth-highest ranked women's singles player from China, at World number 160.

Career

Career Summary

Zhang has enjoyed considerable success in singles on the ITF circuit, having won one $50,000 event, eight $25,000 tournaments and three $10,000 events between 2006 and 2009. As of October 2009, however, she had won only two main draw matches on the WTA circuit. Her peak ranking to date is World No. 132, achieved in July 2007.

Early years

Zhang started playing tennis at age six.

2003-5

The Chinese teenager participated in her first ITF event in November 2003 at the age of 14 as a main draw wildcard at the $25,000 tournament at Taizhou, but was heavily defeated by Tomoko Yonemura.

In 2004 she was wildcarded into two further $25,000 events and won her first match on the circuit in the first, at Beijing in May. She also entered qualifying for two $50,000 events towards the end of the year, winning one match in each case.

Starting 2005 with a lowly ranking of World No. 901, she entered ten ITF events at various levels during the year and improved her ranking to World No. 648 by its end. During the year, she successfully battled through qualifying to enter three $25,000 main draws, and won two main draw first round matches at this level, with victories over World No. 292 Maria Jose Argeri at Nanjing, China in May, and World No. 271 Sophie Ferguson at Wuxi, China in August.

2006

The new year began with Zhang trying her hand at entry-level $10,000 ITF tournaments, and the move paid dividends as she won her first two tournaments of the year outright to claim the first two titles of her young career, both successes coming at Shenzhen, China. On the back of these breakthroughs, her ranking was propelled upwards to World No. 500.

In March, she qualified successfully for a further $25,000 tournament at Canberra, Australia, before losing in the first round proper.

In May, a wildcard into the main draw of a $50,000 event at Beijing paved the way for her winning her first two matches at this level to reach the quarter-finals, where she lost to former Top 50 player Aniko Kapros. But the very next week, a further wildcard into the main draw of a $25,000 event at Tianjin, China was rewarded by outright tournament victory as she notched up the third title of her career and the first at $25,000 level.

Her ranking having leapt up further to World No. 346 by the middle of June, she battled through qualifying to enter the main draw of another $25,000 event at Changwon, Korea, and then won four further matches to reach the final before losing.

In July, now world-ranked No. 297, she gained direct entry to the main draw of a $25,000 event at Chongquing, China, and reacher her third successive final, defeating World No. 227 Melanie South in the semifinal, before losing to lower-ranked Russian talent Elena Chalova in three sets in the final. The very next week, she reached the semifinal at a $25,000 tournament at Chengdu City, where she faced South again, this time losing to her in two close sets.

In August, her strong form continued, as she reached another $25,000 quarter-final at Changsha early in the month, and then won her second career title at this level at Nanjing three weeks later. In the final week of the month, she entered the $50,000 event at Guangzhou and won one match before losing in the second round.

In September, her ranking having risen dramatically further to World No. 209, she attempted to qualify for the main draw of the $600,000 WTA tournament at Beijing, and took her much higher-ranked opponent, World No. 59 Jelena Kostanic Tosic, to three close sets before losing. A week later, she was wildcarded into the main draw of the $175,000 WTA event at Guangzhou, and took the first set against World No. 26 Anna Chakvetadze before eventually losing in three, 6-3 5-7 0-6. This promising although ultimately unsuccessful performance would be the last match of an eventful and highly gainful year for the Chinese teen.

2007

Zhang was a member of China's Fed Cup team in 2007.

In competitive singles, Zhang began the year world ranked No. 203, and despite losing her first three matches of year was propelled upwards into the World Top 200 at No. 200 by random fluctuations in the strength of the field around her by the time of her fourth tournament in mid-February. This position was short-lived as she continued to suffer disappointing results early in the year; but in April she scored one good victory over World No. 159 Lioudmila Skavronskaia, and subsequently, later the same month, took World No. 23 Tathiana Garbin to three sets before losing 4-6 in the third.

A period of unprecedented success on the ITF circuit followed, as she proceeded to win three back-to-back $25,000 titles and then one $50,000 title in China between late April and early June, dropping just two sets in twenty successive matches.

In late June, her ranking having soared from World No. 209 to a career high of World No. 153 on the strength of these successes, she extended her winning streak to 24 matches in a $25,000 event at Noto, Japan before losing in the final to Regina Kulikova whom she had just defeated in straight sets in the finals of both the two previous tournaments she won.

Undeterred, she returned to her winning ways at the next tournament she entered, another $25,000 event at Nagoya, Japan, after facing Kulikova in the final for the fourth tournament in succession. But the next week she lost in the final of a $25,000 event at Miyazaki, Japan, this time to Junri Namigata in straight sets; and a week later, now world-ranked No. 145, she could only reach the quarter-finals of a $25,000 event at Kirume, Japan before this time losing to Australian prospect Sophie Ferguson in three sets.

Nonetheless, once the results from her last tournaments had all been factored in, she reached a fresh career high of World No. 132 on July 23rd.

Mixed results ensued for the rest of the year, after she was largely unsuccessful in trying her hand at higher-level tournaments, and she ended the year world-ranked a slightly lower No. 155.

2008

Zhang began the new year strongly, recording her first two career Top 100 wins over World No. 79 Jill Craybas and World No. 91 Lilia Osterloh to qualify for the $145,000 WTA event at Auckland in early January, before losing in the first round of the main draw to World No. 90 Aravane Rezai.

She reached the final round of qualifying for the Australian Open later that month after recording wins over World No. 129 Stephanie Foretz and World No. 179 Elena Baltacha before losing a three-setter in the qualifying round to World No. 117 Tamarine Tanasugarn. This performance was sufficient to elevate her world ranking to World No. 141, just nine places short of her career best.

A disappointing string of six successive first round losses in straight sets followed, four in events of only $25,000 calibre.

In late May, in the first round of qualifying for the French Open, she defeated World No. 96 Anne Keothavong, but this was a rare success in a bleak spell that saw her ranking plummet to World No. 232 by the middle of July as she failed to defend her several ITF tournament victories from the previous summer.

Her form then showed signs of improvement, as she won three back-to-back matches to qualify for the $175,000 WTA event at Bad Gastein in Austria before losing in the first round proper, and then after taking a month off won through qualifying into the main draw of the US Open by successively defeating Jorgelina Cravero, World No. 107 Stéphanie Dubois, and World No. 137 Melanie South. Although she then lost to World No. 4 Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia in the first round of the main draw, 6–4 6–2, her world ranking, which had fallen to No. 243, was boosted slightly to No. 223 by her successes in the qualifying tournament.

She played only two more tournaments that year, both in September. She lost in the first round of the first; but at the second, the $600,000 event at Beijing, she won through qualifying, assisted by the early retirement of her high-ranked second-round opponent World No. 41 Olga Govortsova, before losing an extremely close battle in the first round proper to World No. 19 Alize Cornet, 1-6 6-3 6-7. The ranking points accrued in her qualification for the main draw were sufficient for her to end the year up slightly again at World No. 212.

2009

This year she did not play in January, and as a consequence her world ranking had fallen to World No. 273 by the start of the following month.

Retreating to $10,000 level ITF events after a four-month break from competitive play, she found herself reaching only the quarter-finals of the first two she entered, losing to much lower-ranked opponents, but won the third outright, defeating rising star Claire Feuerstein in a closely fought three-set final at Lyon, although in the fourth she then proceeded to lose heavily in the second round to fast-rising World No. 460 Elena Chalova.

Raising her level back to $25,000 events in mid-March, she won just one match in two tournaments entered, a win over World No. 229 Stephanie Gehrlein at Tenerife, with losses to experienced opponents in World No. 134 Yvonne Meusburger and former Top 100 star Sanda Mamic following.

She did not play in April, but the month of May brought a return to form as she won her first $25,000 level event since 2007 at Nagano, Japan, although she did not have to face any player ranked in the Top 250 or indeed above her then-current ranking of World No. 262 on the way.

Zhang lost early to unheralded opponents in the next two $25,000 events she entered, but won her second of the year at the end of June in Xiamen, China, defeating World No. 196 Han Xinyun in the semifinals on her way to the title. This success propelled her ranking back upwards to World No. 218.

In August, she was stopped at the semi-final stage of a $25,000 tournament at Quanzhou, China, by a familiar adversary in the form of World No. 165 Sophie Ferguson. Her subsequent attempt to qualify for the second year in succession for the U.S. Open was stopped at the second hurdle in her second loss of the year to Yvonne Meusburger.

In September, she narrowly failed to qualify for two successive $220,000 tournaments, losing in the qualifying round at both Guangzhou and Seoul, where Sophie Ferguson once again put paid to her hopes despite this time winning two fewer games than Zhang in the match, with the final scoreline 0-6 7-6 (5) 6-3.

But a remarkable turnaround in her fortunes was just around the corner. After entering the Premier Mandatory event 2009 China Open main draw as a wildcard, world ranked No. 226, she reached the 3rd round by first defeating World No. 33 Iveta Benesova in straight sets, and then upsetting the current World No. 1 Dinara Safina in two close sets, 7-5 7-6. These were her first two victories over any player currently ranked in the Top 75 for reasons other than the early retirement of her opponent, her first two victories over any player currently ranked in the Top 40 for any reason including the retirement of her opponent, and her first two victories over any opponent ranked higher than World No. 196 in 2009. She lost relatively comfortably in the third round to World No. 13 Marion Bartoli.

In beating Safina in this tournament, Zhang also incidentally surpassed the record set by Julie Coin in her defeat of Ana Ivanovic in 2008, succeeding her as the lowest-ranked player to defeat a reigning World No. 1 in a WTA main tour event in the Open era. Coin was ranked World No. 188 at the time of her defeat of Ivanovic, some 38 places above Zhang at the time of her defeat of Safina.

Zhang's ranking rebounded to World No. 160 following the tournament, still 28 places short of her career high.

Personal

Zhang is coached by Yan Fang Fang. Her hobbies are eating and music. Her parents are Zhang Zhi Qiang and Wang Feng Qin.

Performance timelines

Singles performance timeline

Tournament	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	Career WR	Career win-loss
Grand Slams
Australian Open	-	-	-	Q1	Q3	0 / 0	0-0
French Open	-	-	-	-	Q2	0 / 0	0–0
Wimbledon	-	-	-	-	-	0 / 0	0-0
U.S. Open	-	-	-	Q2	1R	0 / 1	0-1
Grand Slam WR	0 / 0	0 / 0	0 / 0	0 / 0	0 / 1	0 / 1
Grand Slam win-loss	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-1		0-1
Year-end ranking	901	648	200	149

Q1 = made it to qualifying round one
Q2 = made it to qualifying round two
Q3 = made it to qualifying round three
1R = made it to tournament first round
WR = ratio of tournaments won to tournaments played

Women's doubles performance timeline

Tournament	2005	2006	2007	2008	Career WR	Career win-loss
Grand Slams
Australian Open	-	-	-	-	0 / 0	0-0
French Open	-	-	-	-	0 / 0	0–0
Wimbledon	-	-	-	-	0 / 0	0-0
U.S. Open	-	-	-	-	0 / 0	0-0
Grand Slam WR	0 / 0	0 / 0	0 / 0	0 / 0	0 / 0
Grand Slam win-loss	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-0		0-0
Year-end ranking	555	257	246

WR = ratio of tournaments won to tournaments played

See also

• Tennis in China

External links

• Zhang Shuai at the Women's Tennis Association