Paula Badosa continues to extend her sweet moment of form on the WTA circuit. This Thursday, the Catalan player reached the WTA 1000 semifinals in Beijing after beating the Chinese in two sets Shuai Zhang.
Badosa has prevailed 6-1 y 7-6(4) to the Asian player, number 595 in the world, to reach the penultimate round of the tournament without complications. He has continued the great sensations exhibited in the quarterfinals against Jessica Pegula and will play his second consecutive semifinals in a WTA 1000.
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After reaching the penultimate round in Cincinnati, where he lost precisely to Pegula, Badosa awaits in Chinese lands Coco Gauffwho had to come back against the Ukrainian Yulia Starodubtseva to beat her 2-6, 6-2 and 6-2. Badosa will arrive with great feelings once again to the meeting with the American after a match against Zhang in which she dominated in the first set and in which she knew how to suffer in the second. There will be like this a sixth duel between Gauff and Badosa, with a balance of 3-2 for the Spanish.
A storming start to serve and to the rest has allowed Badosa to add four games in a row against Zhang, including two to the rest and a blank, to get back on track for a first set that closed with 6-1. However, a mistake in the first game of the second set with the serve has forced the Spaniard to row with a break down. lor has recovered in the sixth game of the set, She has become strong with her serve and has decided in the tie-break a match in which she has been very confident with her first serve but in which she takes the second as the main aspect of improvement for the semifinals.
They will be the fifth for her in a WTA 1000. Champion in Indian Wells 2021 the first time she appeared in that round, she was a semifinalist in Madrid weeks later and in the Californian tournament in 2022 before physical problems, with a stress fracture in a vertebra, made a dent in his game and his results.
But after a difficult start to the year, Badosa continues its upward trend. Champion in Washington, semifinalist in CIncinnati and quarterfinalist in the US Openwill seek this Saturday the fifth WTA final of her career after recovering her best level of play in recent weeks: It is already virtual top15 in the world and continues to get closer to the top10. In addition, she is ranked eleventh best player of the year and continues in her fight to reach the WTA Finals.
