Michael Zheng beat Argentine Federico Agustin Gomez 6-7, 6-3, 6-3 in the first round of qualifying at the Rolex Shanghai Masters. The ATP 1000 tournament is being played on hard courts, with prize money of $11.2 million. Zheng entered Shanghai as the sixth seed. According to rank.tennis, he is ranked No. 104 (574 points). Gomez is No. 205 (272 points).
How the match unfolded
The first set went to Gomez: Zheng dropped it 6-7. In the second, the American managed to turn the match around and won 6-3. He finished the deciding set with the same score, 6-3, and sealed the match 2:1 in sets.
Zheng arrived in Shanghai on mixed form. At the Jingshan Tennis Open, he beat Yaojie Zeng in the round of 32 (7-6, 6-1), then lost to Yanki Erel in the round of 16 (1-6, 6-7). Earlier at the Aito Hangzhou Open, he lost to Yunchaokete Bu in the round of 32 (4-6, 3-6), and in the semifinal of the Tiburon Challenger he fell to Darwin Blanch (6-7, 6-7).
For Gomez, the latest result in the records is the Tennis Warehouse Open. There he beat Tyler Zink (6-2, 6-3) and Trevor Svajda (7-5, 6-4), and in the quarterfinal he lost to Igor Marcondes (6-4, 4-6, 1-6). The Argentine’s Shanghai match against Zheng ended with the same set score as that quarterfinal: he took the first set and lost the next two.