Original title: American player Opelka retired (quote)
Zhang Zhizhen made a replacement and went straight to the Australian Open (theme)
News tonight (Haihe Media Center reporter Zhang Lulu) On the evening of January 4th, Beijing time, good news came: due to the retirement of the American player Opelka, Zhang Zhizhen qualified for the 2023 Australian Open men’s singles as a replacement. This is the first time that a Chinese men’s singles player has entered the main match of a Grand Slam tennis tournament by virtue of his world ranking in the Open era.
In October 2022, Zhang Zhizhen’s ATP world ranking rose to No. 96, becoming the first Mainland Chinese men’s singles player to rank among the top 100 in the world. Under normal circumstances, the world ranking can basically guarantee a qualification for the Australian Open. However, due to the use of “protection ranking” by many players this year to participate in the Australian Open, Zhang Zhizhen was once squeezed out of the main match list. However, as Opelka, ranked 38th in the world, withdrew, Zhang Zhizhen qualified for the Australian Open.
This will be the third time in Zhang Zhizhen’s career that he will play in the Grand Slam tennis tournament. At Wimbledon in 2021 and the US Open in 2022, Zhang Zhizhen started from the qualifying rounds twice and reached the main draw of the Grand Slam. Unfortunately, he lost 2-3 in the first round of both events. Now that Zhang Zhizhen has entered the Australian Open by virtue of his world ranking, he will once again launch an impact on his first Grand Slam victory.