Cornet bows out to Shuai Zhang in final qualifying round

Alize Cornet of France failed to escape an upset in the final qualifying round of BNP Paribas Open at the hands of the 160th ranked Chinese competitor, Shuai Zhang, on Tuesday. It was a gruelling encounter of three hours and 17 minutes that ended up with scores of 2-6, 7-6(4), 7-6(3). Previous head-to-head battles were won by the French tennis professional but this time the Chinese contestant was in no mood to give up and fought until the end. She got off the mark in the third face-off between the two players and more importantly booked a post in the opening round of the tournament. The Chinese contestant started the match in dismal fashion having lost a couple of early breakthroughs and trailed 0-4. She could only register a couple of successful serve games before the French gusted away with a set lead. It looked like Zhang was on course to her third head-to-head defeat in Indian Wells.
The second wasn’t good at all for the Chinese at the start when she went a couple of breaks down with scores marching on to 0-3. She fought extremely well to win the following three games and tied the scores at 3-3. It was a classic comeback that turned the tables on the French.
A couple of breakpoints were saved by the French to stay in the contest and enforce a tie-breaker round. Things were looking good for the Chinese. She won an early mini-break in the tie-breaker and progressed ahead with a set triumph under her belt as well. A taxing battle in the third set was witnessed at the hard courts of California. Both players swapped a couple of breakpoints to start the set and then repeated the same after registering one serve hold each. Four breakpoints were already won by each competitor but the scores were kept together at 5-5. No more breakpoints and the scores tickled over to 6-6 with a second tie-breaker round into play. It was all down to one mistake from either opponent. The first one to commit a suicidal error was the superior ranked French who tried to improvise with a drop shot but struck the ball straight into the net. A mini-break for the Chinese proved beneficial that was coupled with a cracking winner down the line to gobble up the win. She progresses into the main round; will face-off the Romanian starlet, Simona Halep.