Tennis News

HONOLULU, HI, USA – Top seed Zhang Shuai moved into the Hawaii Open semifinals on Friday with a hard-fought win over Samantha Crawford.

Watch free live streaming from Honolulu all week right here!

Breaks in the fifth game of both sets proved decisive as Zhang closed out a 6-4, 6-4 victory in an hour and 18 minutes.

Honolulu is the final event of a memorable year for Zhang that has seen her emerge as an unlikely standard bearer for Chinese tennis. Little more than 12 months ago, Zhang was contemplating retirement on the back of a dispiriting spell on tour. Sam Stosur talked her out of it and she has been on an upward trajectory ever since.

In January she ended her long-running Grand Slam hoodoo by making it all the way through qualifying and into the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, building on this platform with credible showings in Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Zhuhai to leave herself on the verge of the Top 20.

Meeting her for a place in the final will be No.6 seed Evgeniya Rodina, who posted a battling win over Sachia Vickery. Rodina, who won last week’s OEC Taipei WTA Challenger, was forced to dig deep against Vickery prevailing in a tense finale to triumph, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, in a fraction under two hours.

Another player on the up is CiCi Bellis, who confidently booked her final four spot by swatting aside Sara Sorribes Tormo, 6-1, 6-1.

Bellis recently broke into the Top 100 for the first time after back-to-back titles on the ITF Circuit, and broke serve six times against Sorribes Tormo to extend her winning sequence to 12 matches. Next she faces Jacqueline Cako, who advanced when Sabine Lisicki retired with a shoulder injury.

You’ve probably heard their voices during a match, but how much do you know about the WTA commentators that call all the action?

In this episode of WTA’s Behind The Tour, go inside the booth with Mikey Perera and Pete Odgers, the men behind the mic at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.

“It’s a pretty special and privileged position to be in, to be watching sport for a living,” Odgers said. “But not only watching sport, but to be watching it with legends and people you’ve looked up to as a child.”

Perera added, “I just like to have fun, because after all, it’s sport. It’s entertainment; it’s supposed to be fun and that’s what I try to get into my commentaries.”

Want to hear more from WTA World Feed commentator Mikey Perera?