A few 24 hours after her painful elimination in the semifinals of the WTA 250 tournament in Leeds by Petra Martic, Maria Sakkari started her duties at the 500 tournament in Doha with her right hand.

The 27-year-old Greek beat world No. 24 tennis player Qingwen Zheng, responding and qualifying for the ’16’ best of the Qatar Open, winning her 9th win in 2023.

After a two-hour match, she defeated the 21-year-old Chinese 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 and is awaiting Karolina Pliskova’s match with Ekaterina Alexandrova to find out her next opponent.

This was Sakkari’s first win of the year against a top 25 tennis player and came at the right time to boost her morale after a very poor result in Austria and with the big tournaments just around the corner.

To eliminate Zheng, No. 5 on the table in Doha, she had to win 50/73 points behind her serve and keep it intact in both the 1st and 3rd sets of the game.

If you exclude the 2nd part of the match, where Maria blacked out and made a lot of mistakes, which allowed her opponent to recover, her performance was generally good.

Sakkari ended the match with 4/7 break point opportunities, which if she had been more careful could have won much sooner as she led by a set and a break (6-2, 2-1).

However, she lost the next five (!) games, losing the 2nd set and Zeng was on course to claim victory. What she failed against Martic a few days ago, Maria did against the 21-year-old.

She played a solid 3rd set, withstood the pressure from the Chinese (saving two break points at 3-1) and ‘finished’ the match with nerves of steel, completing the very demanding test of her debut at the Qatar Open.

Source: Tennis24.gr