The small player in the Rome season entered the semifinals, and the women s singles big dark horse lost, Zheng Qinwen will set two major records

The 2025 Tennis WTA1000 Roman Tournament is in full swing. This event is the 6th WTA 1000 level event in 2025. There are 96 draws in the main competition. The top 32 seeds directly advance to the top 64. The championship prize is US$877,000. According to the latest exchange rate, it is equivalent to about RMB 6.35 million. The top 8 seeds are the top seed Belarus heavy shot Sabalenka, the defending champion of the No. 2 seed, the defending champion of Polish star Svatech, the No. 3 seed, the No. 4 seed, the No. 4 seed, the No. 5 seed, the No. 5 seed, the No. 6 seed, the No. 6 seed, the No. 7 seed, the Russian genius girl Mira Andreeva; the No. 8 seed, the No. 8 seed, the No. 8 seed, the No. 6 seed, the No. 6 seed, the No. 7 seed, the No. 8 seed, the Chinese player Zheng Qinwen. In the quarter-finals, the No. 6 seed Italian star Bolini faces No. 13 seed Russian star Schneider.

21-year-old Russian player Schneider ushered in an outbreak this season. Last year, she won four WTA Tour singles championships and is currently ranked 11th in the world. After entering the clay season, Schneider performed even better, advancing to the semi-finals in Stuttgart and Madrid. When he arrived at the Rome season, the Russian star was in a hot state. He swept the 73rd-ranked American player Dolehead in the second round with two 6-0. He defeated American player Christian in two straight sets in the third round. In the last round, he even revenged the No. 25 seed Mertens with a score of 6-2 and 6-3. He advanced to the quarterfinals of Rome for the first time in his career, becoming one of the biggest dark horses in this tournament.

Borini is the leader in the Italian women's singles. The small player, who is only 1.63 meters tall, ushered in the peak of his career last year. He not only won the women's singles championship in Dubai Station in 2024, but also reached the French Open and Wimbledon finals back to back, and won the women's doubles championship at the Paris Olympics with Elani. With this series of outstanding performances, Borini's year-end world ranking jumped to No. 4. This season, despite facing huge pressure to maintain points, Bolini still broke the doubts from the outside world with her stable performance. In the Rome season, she defeated strong opponents such as Sun Lulu, Jabbar and Ostapenko in succession, and advanced to the quarterfinals, becoming the first Italian player to advance to the quarterfinals of Rome since Elani in 2014.

This quarter-final showdown is full of drama.

In the first set, Borini started in a hot state, and with excellent serve and quick return, he scored a 4-0 lead. Just when the audience thought the game would be one-sided, Schneider suddenly regained his touch and won five games in a row to overtake the score to 5-4. At the critical moment, Bolini showed the calmness of a veteran and broke the serve again in the 11th game, getting a stock 6-5. However, Schneider withstood the pressure in the serve game that must be guaranteed and completed the return and dragged the game into tiebreak. In the tiebreak game, Schneider's forehand offense was strong, scoring four points in a row to lead 4-0, and finally won the first set with a small score of 7-1. In the second set, Schneider continued his hot state and broke the serve at the beginning, breaking the serve with a 4-0 lead with a break and a guarantee. If the last two games in the first set are included, the Russian Rising Star has won six games in a row. Just when the game seemed to lose suspense, Bolini started to fight back. After the Italian struggled to retain his serve in the fifth game, he finally broke the serve at the fifth break point after many tests in the sixth game, chasing the score to 2-4.

The subsequent game completely entered Bolini's rhythm. She broke and won four games in a row, winning 6-4. The final game also had twists and turns. Schneider took the lead 2-0 at the beginning, and Bolini immediately responded to a 3-0 and overtook 3-2. In the crucial sixth game, Borini broke the service at the third break point and took a 4-2 lead. Since then, the Italians have become more and more braver in the battle, winning two games in a row, locking in the victory 6-2, and reversing the total score 2-1 to advance to the semi-finals.

This victory allowed Borini to receive 390 ranking points and a bonus of 240,380 euros (about 1.92 million yuan), and also made her the first player to advance to the semi-finals of this event. As the host player, Borini, with the enthusiastic support of the Rome audience, is expected to launch another attack on the finals of major events after last year's French Open and Wimbledon.

At the same time, Chinese player Zheng Qinwen will face the top seed Sabalenka in another quarter-final match. This game is of great significance to Zheng Qinwen. If she can win, she will set two major records: first, this will be the first time she has defeated Sabalenka in her career, ending a six-game losing streak against the Belarusian star; second, this will be Zheng Qinwen's first victory against the current top three players in the world. As Svatech recently fell out of the top three, the world's top three are currently composed of Sabalenka, Gov and Pegula. Zheng Qinwen has not yet won the battle with these three, and has not won in either WTA events or other competitions. Therefore, this showdown with Sabalenka will be an excellent opportunity for Zheng Qinwen to break through.