Well over a year after her first WTA tour final, in Monterrey, Lulu Sun reached her second when she faced second seed Ann Li in the Championship decider in Guangzhou. Li was coming off a semi-final which lasted only 20 minutes before Zhang Shuai retired, and had spent less than five hours on court in her first three matches. By way of contrast, Sun’s six earlier matches, including qualifying, had taken close to nine hours, so it was going to be a case of seeing how much she had left in the tank.
Li hit a beautiful forehand winner down the line to take her to 40-15 in the opening game, but Sun forced her into errors to get to the first deuce of the afternoon. A great return of serve forced an error from Li to give away the first break point, but a forced error the other way sent them to a second deuce. An unreturnable serve gave Li the advantage, and a beautiful inside-out forehand winner from the American gave her the game.
Sun hit a lovely forehand winner down the line on the way to a much more comfortable hold, while Li started her next game with a fabulous cross-court forehand winner before again needing to get through two deuces on the way to winning the game. She added a superb cross-court backhand winner off Sun before taking the New Zealander to deuce with a fabulous forehand return down the left-hand side of the court which the line judge obviously felt had caught the baseline.
Sun needed an ace to save a break point after the second deuce, adding a service winner out wide on the next point before an unreturnable serve ended the longest game of the match after six and a half minutes. Li ended the good short rally on her first point with a fabulous backhand down the line before going on to hold to love. Sun did the same, but her opening point had been finished off by a beautiful inside-out forehand volley.
Li was forced to concede a break point in the next game when she hit a backhand over the baseline, but got to deuce when she ended a great rally with a beautiful cross-court forehand winner. A poor backhand drop shot gave Sun another break point, but the left-hander was forced to end another good short rally by hitting a forehand into the net. Tow forced backhand errors gave Li the game, but Sun started her next game with a lovely overhead winner before adding two aces down the middle on the way to levelling the scores again.
Li hit a fabulous inside-out forehand winner to end a good short rally in her next game, and a comfortable hold meant that Sun was now serving to stay in the set. An inside-out backhand into the tramlines, followed by consecutive double faults, meant that Li had two set points. She was forced to hit a cross-court forehand into the tramlines on the first one before a great serve saw her forehand return go into the net, and two more unreturnable serves gave the New Zealander a bit more breathing room.
Li gave away a deuce in the next game when she double faulted, and a break point when she hit a forehand over the baseline. An unreturnable serve got her back to deuce, with Sun then hitting a forehand into the net before Li hit a fabulous cross-court backhand winner to put the pressure back on Sun.
She faced another set point after being forced to hit a forehand into the net, but did the same to Li with her next serve. A backhand into the tramlines from Sun gave Li a fourth set point, but three consecutive forehand unforced errors from the American meant that a tie-break was in order. She made that four errors in a row when she started with a forehand over the baseline, and the next few points went with serve before Li got the mini-break back on the last point before they changed ends.
That came from a beautiful forehand winner that she steered into the right-hand corner at the end of a great rally, but gave Sun the advantage again when lost the second of her next pair of points by hitting another forehand too far. She got that back on the next point when Sun hit a cross-court backhand wide, and took the lead for the first time when she hit the shot of the match, a terrific forehand passing shot down the line.
That gave Li a fifth set point, but that went west when she hit a cross-court backhand into the tramlines, levelling the scores as they went to the second change of ends. A sixth set point came when Sun hit a poor backhand return of serve into the net, and the groan from the crowd when she pushed an easy backhand volley over the baseline could have been heard from outside the stadium. The set had lasted for an hour and six minutes.
The highlights in the opening game of the second set were a fabulous cross-court backhand return into the corner and a lovely forehand return down the left sideline, with the second of those giving Li an immediate break after two deuces. There were more highlights in the second game, Sun winning an incredible seven shot rally when they each covered more ground than someone trying to find their way around a supermarket before hitting a fabulous inside-out forehand winner after nearly taking that point with a wonderful forehand return of serve.
That gave Sun a chance to break straight back, but Li got to deuce when she ended the best of the long rallies with a beautiful inside-out forehand winner on the 17th shot. An unreturnable serve gave Li the advantage, and she held on when Sun’s final forehand in another good rally landed what must have been only fractionally past the baseline. As in all her previous matches, there did seem to be too many line calls that would have been disputed had there been a review system available.
As if one break of serve wasn’t bad enough, Sun had her worst game in the match when she hit four unforced errors in her last five points, but she did at least get one of the breaks back when she finished the next game with a beautiful forehand return down the left-hand side of the court. That flicker of hope was extinguished immediately when an ace out wide was the only point she won in her next game, and Li held easy to move within one game of victory.
The last point in that game had come from a cross-court forehand drop shot which appeared to land in the tramlines, but it was very hard to tell because the TV director had used a low cross-court camera angle instead of the usual shot from high up. Although she didn’t face any match points, Sun had to get through two deuces before finishing her next game with two unreturnable serves to Li’s backhand wing.
The American started what she hoped would be the final game by forcing Sun into a return error, and followed that with an ace out wide. A beautiful cross-court backhand winner gave her three Championship points, but Sun saved the first with a beautiful forehand winner down the line. Her forehand return landed just a fraction long, and the title was Li’s after an hour and 41 minutes. The final score was 7-6 (6), 6-2. Sun was supposed to be playing another WTA 250 in Chennai this week, but it’s not particularly surprising that she decided to withdraw.