Lulu Sun’s biggest wins before this year came in the ITF W100 event in Bonita Springs last year, where she won both the singles and doubles titles, beating young Australian star Maya Joint in the former. The WTA 125 tournaments, of which Jingshan is one, are the women’s equivalent of the ATP Challenger tour, so therefore act as the stepping stone between the top ITF events, and this week’s final was Sun’s first at that level. Her opponent was Ma Ye-xin, who has had a mixed year but a good week.
Her final didn’t start that well, however, as she was broken to love in the opening game, after Sun hit beautiful backhand and forehand winners down the line on the two deuce court points. There were only a few decent rallies in the match, and two of those came in the next game. Sun won the second of those with one of her trademarked lovely inside-out forehand winners, giving herself a game point, and she consolidated the break by forcing Ma to hit a cross-court backhand into the tramlines.
Ma got on the board in the next game, despite another gorgeous inside-out forehand winner from Sun, who hit her first two aces in the next game. The shot of the match was Sun’s stunning inside-out forehand return of Ma’s opening serve in the next game, but the left-hander wouldn’t win another point. She made up for that by hitting three consecutive aces in the next game, the second down the middle off a second serve, and forced Ma into a return error to complete the hold.
Sun hit a fabulous backhand winner down the line before Ma gave away break points when she hit a backhand over the baseline. Sun hit a cross-court backhand into the net to give away the first of those, and Ma was lucky to get to deuce when her cross-court forehand that travelled the full diagonal length of the court was called in, although Sun, the crowd, and probably everyone watching online were sure that it wasn’t. She had to save another break point after the deuce when her cross-court forehand landed in the tramlines, but an unreturnable serve took care of that.
A fourth break point came when Ma was forced into another forehand error at the end of a great rally, but again Sun wasn’t able to get the return back in play. Her first ace gave Ma a game point, but Sun took them to a fourth deuce with a fabulous cross-court backhand winner that must have caught the sideline, only to hit both of her next two backhand returns over the baseline. The longest game of the match had lasted for nearly seven minutes.
A poor game from Sun, which included four unforced errors from her and only one from Ma, let the Chinese player level the score, but Sun started the next game with a terrific backhand winner down the line before Ma gave away more break points when she overhit a cross-court backhand. Unforced errors from Sun took them to the first of two deuces, and she got another break when she forced Ma into two errors after the second of those, the final shot being a forehand into the net at the end of a great rally.
Sun was now serving for the set and, after an overhit forehand to start the game, she forced Ma into three return errors to give herself two set points. Sun missed her first serve, and Ma got the second back into play, but Sun forced another error from the Chinese player to see yet another forehand end in the net. The set had taken 40 minutes.
Less than 15 minutes later, Sun had extended her run to six games without reply, and the match was effectively over so long as she didn’t make too many mistakes. She had ended the first of those four games in the second set with gorgeous cross-court forehand winners, and added a beautiful backhand down the right-hand side of the court to complete the break in the third before finishing a hold to love with a lovely forehand down the line.
It had been nearly twenty minutes since the last decent rally, but we were treated to two great ones when Ma served next. The first came on the opening point, and it ended on the 17th shot when Ma was forced to hit a forehand into the canopy above umpire Scott Noble’s seat. Although slightly shorter, the rally that came two points later was the best in the match, and it finished with the best shot we saw all day from Ma when she hit a fabulous cross-court backhand winner.
She went on to hold serve, and did so to love the next time she stepped up to the line, but Sun had held comfortably in-between and was now looking at the first of two chances that she would have to serve for the title. The longest rally in the match came in this game, although it wasn’t as good as the ones seen three games earlier, and this time Ma ended it when she hit a forehand into the net. She made up for that with a beautiful forehand winner down the line, and a double fault gave away a break point.
Another great serve saw that hope snuffed out when Ma’s cross-court backhand return sailed long, and another unreturnable serve gave Sun her first Championship point. That one chance was all she needed, with the victory being sealed after an hour and ten minutes by another stunning forehand down the line. The final score was 6-4, 6-2, and Sun could now add another singles title to the seven which she collected in ITF events.