Elina Svitolina beats Ann Li to set up Qinwen Zheng quarter-final in Beijing, while Iga Swiatek will play Elise Mertens: Reaction & Previews

John Silk (0:00)

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Amanda (0:05)

Ready.

John Silk (0:09)

Play.

Amanda (0:13)

Svitolina serves out wide, gets the unreturned. Alright, so very little drama as Svitolina serves out the match 6-2, 6-3. Closer than the scoreline would suggest, I think, but still a pretty dominant win for Svitolina as she gets this done in straight sets. And she will take on the home favorite, Zheng, in the quarterfinals. Not tomorrow, day after, because that's the format of this tournament.

Oh, two-week masters. Why are you like this? But anyways, that's not what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about Svitolina. Very impressive win.

Yeah, looking forward to that quarterfinal.

John Silk (0:58)

I'm just going to plug my mic in, and then I'll be with you.

Amanda (1:00)

Okay.

John Silk (1:03)

Okay.

So Svitolina obviously struggling to hold serve today a lot. Was that down to Li? Was it down to Svitolina, a little bit of both, or what do you think?

Amanda (1:21)

I think a little bit both. I mean, generally, I think all the games were pretty close, and it just happened to be that Li was playing a little better on return games, honestly. But yeah, I mean, part of that is Svitolina, I think she doesn't get as many free points on her serve as she could. And yeah, I don't know. But I think also part of it is that her return quality is so high and she breaks so often that it's not as crucial for her to get a hold every service game.

John Silk (1:52)

Qinwen Zheng came through in three sets today. It's not a match that I saw.

But as you mentioned in the commentary, she has kicked on since the US Open. As you highlighted, you know, other players can have a special run, let's say a lower ranked player can have a special run and then fail to follow that up, especially post US Open. But Qinwen Zheng, there's two very special elements as you highlighted, she's a former top 10 player. So in a way that was her announcing, I'm back in New York rather than, wow, what a great run for a lower ranked player who's had to come through qualifying. The second thing, of course, this time of year, I think maybe more than any other, motivation is massive. Because if you've got, we saw with Elena Rabatkin at this time last year, she was chasing down a WTA Finals spot and she was playing every tournament she possibly could as we got nearer and nearer those year-end finals. And she picked up as it turned out enough points to squeeze out Mida Andraeva. If you remember, there was a tournament, I think Mida didn't sign up for, maybe in time or there was certainly-

Amanda (3:07)

Yeah, it was Tokyo.

John Silk (3:08)

Yeah, so, and that was probably the difference. At least if she had a couple of wins in Tokyo, it might well have been the difference. She probably would have had to go on there and win a couple of matches. She was really scratching for form and Rebacca was on a real charge. And by the way, Rebacca still might have got it because I think Rebacca pulled out of possibly Tokyo. Like she plays Tokyo, but she gets enough points and then she withdraws maybe at the semifinal stage. Whatever the tournament was that sealed Rebacca's appearance, I'm pretty sure she didn't finish that particular tournament and because she didn't need to. And that obviously gave her enough energy then to go on and do it. But anyway, come back to Qinwen Zheng. There's no lacking in motivation, of course, when she's on home territory. And now she's going to be playing.

Elina Svitolina, do you have any idea what the head to head is? Because I know what it is. But do you know?

Amanda (4:05)

No, I don't. I can't think of the time they played actually.

John Silk (4:08)

I was surprised anyway. Let me say that. Do you want to guess?

Amanda (4:15)

Like 2-1 for Zheng.

John Silk (4:20)

Okay. If the WTA website is correct, it's amazing. They've never met.

Amanda (4:26)

Wait, so I was right. I couldn't think of the time they played. Yeah.

John Silk (4:29)

Well, I heard you start to say that. Yeah, I did interrupt you. But Qinwen, I know she's only 23, but she's been around on the tour for like five plus years, I guess.

So yeah, they've never met, which did take me by surprise because I know Svitolina has had her absences from the tour, but still, for those two players, they would have been probably top 20 at the same time and going deep at lots of tournaments. But it is what it is, and yeah, they've never met before. I don't know, I think I'm leaning Qinwen.