Top seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga ended local hopes at the China Open with a 6-3 6-4 defeat of wildcard Zhang Ze to reach the quarter-finals on Thursday. The women’s tournament suffered another blow when second seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus pulled out with a foot injury to leave Caroline Wozniacki as the only top-10 player in the draw after the world number one beat Estonian Kaia Kanepi. The 9-ranked Zhang offered some resistance to Frenchman Tsonga and gave a good account of himself in front of Chinese basketball hero Yao Ming who was watching from a VIP box. However, despite making the world number seven sweat an upset never really looked likely as Tsonga went through to the last eight where he will play former world number one Juan Carlos Ferrero after he beat fellow Spaniard Marcel Granollers.
“I think when you reach the top 100 you can see the difference between the serves and with the returns,” Tsonga told reporters after finishing the match with an ace. All the pre-tourament hype surrounded China’s French Open women’s champion Li Na but she crashed out in the first round of the WTA event which is running alongside the men’s. Former world number ones Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams pulled out before the tournament and Azarenka departed on Thursday when she could not play her third round match against Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
