体坛英语资讯：China Open 3rd round sees Zhang Shuai, Wang Qiang into quarters_娱乐

体坛英语资讯：China Open 3rd round sees Zhang Shuai, Wang Qiang into quarters

Chinese wild card entry Wang Qiang beat No. 7 seed Karolina Pliskova 6-4, 6-4. This is the second time in a little over a week that the Chinese player has beaten her more fancied opponent, after Wang moved past Pliskova in the second round of the Wuhan Open.

Buoyed by home support, Wang took the first set after breaking Pliskova's serve early in the match. Despite a series of lengthy service games, Wang was able to hold off the Czech player and closed out the first set with a blistering forehand winner.

Pliskova started the second set by winning the first break point she had been offered in the match thus far. This was followed by a crucial game where Pliskova saved two break points to take a 3-1 lead in the second set.

However Pliskova's momentum soon came to a halt as Wang came back from 4-1 down to serve for the match at 4-5. The young Chinese player upped her first serve percentage from 55 to 68 percent and took advantage of some reckless approach shots from her opponent. She won five consecutive games and booked her place in the quarterfinals.

Up next for Wang is a surging Aryna Sabalenka, who rebounded from a set down beat No. 4 seed Caroline Garcia 5-7, 7-6, 0-6.

Both players struggled to hold serve in a first set that saw seven breaks of serve. Sabalenka did herself no favours, conceding six double faults and making 23 unforced errors to hand the advantage to Garcia.

After losing serve and being down 2-5 in the second set, Sabalenka found her nerve and managed to get back to 5-5 as Garcia started to falter. The Wuhan Open champion forced a tie break and never looked back as she took the second set, and then turned up the intensity to win the final set 6-0.