16-year-old Sun Xinran continues to shine at the WTA level on home soil. The junior No.1 reached her first WTA quarterfinal on Thursday, rallying through physical difficulties, and some emotional anguish, to take out No.7 seed Maria Timofeeva, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(3).
Sun, who won the US Open girls’ singles title in September and recently won the World Tennis Tour Junior Finals in Chengdu, rallied from 5-2 down in the third set and saved a match point to earn a dramatic victory in Guangzhou.
Sun is the youngest WTA player to reach a quarterfinal at tour-level since Coco Gauff in 2019.
“I think just always fight and never give up,” Sun said in English.
The world No.405 had her right knee wrapped after Timofeeva broke her for 5-4 in the second set. She later took the tape off to start the final set, but she could not summon the energy in the first half of the set.
“I think, actually, the first set went relatively smoothly, because at that time I still had quite a lot of energy,” Sun said. “But toward the end of the second set, I felt like I had already reached my physical limit.
“I don’t know why, but today, once I reached that limit, I just kept getting more and more tired. I even started feeling a little dizzy. At that moment, I felt pretty desperate, to be honest.”
Sun turned things around late, helped by plenty of loose play from Timofeeva, who committed 62 unforced errors in the match.
Sun, who won her first two tour-level matches in Beijing before falling to Coco Gauff in the round of 16, saved a match point with Timofeeva serving at 5-3 (on a double fault from Timofeeva), then converted her third break point of the game (also on a double fault) to get back on serve.
Sun then leveled the set with a hold for 5-5, and eventually came through in the tiebreak.
“I told myself that no matter what happened, I had to do my best to keep going and finish the match,” she said in Chinese. “I couldn’t let the people who support me down, and I didn’t want to let myself down either.”
Sun will face Claire Liu, who advanced via walkover when Katerina Siniakova pulled out due to injury, in the quarterfinals.
The final eight in Guangzhou will feature just three seeded players, including No.4 Lilli Tagger and No.5 Paula Badosa.
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