After breaking the 52-year record for the longest losing streak in tennis, China’s Zhang Shuai is making up for lost time.
The 35-year-old, ranked 595th, ended a miserable 24-game losing streak spanning more than 600 days at her home tournament, the China Open, where she has now made history.
Zhang beat No. 65 American McCartney Kessler for her first win since January 2023 and stunned US Open semifinalist Emma Navarro to advance to the third round.
This made her the lowest-ranked player to beat a top-10 opponent in the tournament’s history, and the 23-year-old Navarro was ranked eighth in the world.
In the Open era, from 1968 to 1972, when Madeleine Pegel did not win a single match in her first 29 matches at the beginning of the tour, she lost more than Zhang’s 24-game losing streak (excluding the Billie Jean King Cup). There was only one female athlete who recorded it.
Zhang, the lowest-ranked player in the main draw for the China Open, a WTA 1000 event, won 6-4, 6-2 in Beijing on Friday and will next face either 28th-seeded Anastasia Potapova of Russia or Grit of Belgium. He will face Minnen.
The two-time Grand Slam quarterfinalist recently defeated No. 10 Caroline Garcia in a match against a top-10 player in Tokyo in 2022.
Zhang’s career has been hampered by injuries and he took a six-month break last year before returning to Dubai in February.
