China Open 2026 — Elise Mertens stuns Iga Swiatek to enter semifinal
Elise Mertens will face Zheng Qinwen in the China Open 2026 semifinal. | Photo Credit: AP
Elise Mertens will face Zheng Qinwen in the China Open 2026 semifinal. | Photo Credit: AP
Belgian Elise Mertens stunned Poland’s Iga Swiatek 7-6 (0), 6-3 in the China Open 2026 quarterfinal on Friday.
The 30-year-old, ranked 19th in the world, took one hour and 50 minutes to beat the six-time Grand Slam winner and reach her third WTA 1000 semifinal of her career and her first since 2021.
Swiatek is the third Grand Slam winner Mertens has defeated in this tournament, earlier seeing off Jelena Ostapenko and Coco Gauff.
ALSO READ | Shanghai Masters 2026 — Djokovic dumped out by Hurkacz; Shelton, Zverev advance to third round
“Sometimes you just grow into a tournament,” said Mertens after the match.
Mertens will now take on home favourite Zheng Qinwen for a spot in the final after she beat Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina 6-3, 7-6 (6) earlier in the day.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.