Zheng Jie loses first match in Tournament of Champions

 Zheng Jie loses first match in Tournament of Champions

SOFIA, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Zheng Jie stumbled in her first match in the Tournament of Champions, losing 2-6, 6-4, 7-4 (4) to home player Tsvetana Pironkova.

Seeded sixth, Zheng failed to conquer her opponent in the two hours and 41 minutes match as the Bulgarian No.1 was willed to the victory amid home support.

Zheng cruised through the first set and was two games from victory at 6-2, 4-4 but the No.8 seed Pironkova started finding the range on her serve and massive backhand from there, reeling off five games to take the set and build a 3-0 lead in the third.

Zheng would eventually close that gap, grinding from 0-3 and later 3-5 to go up 6-5 in the third, but Pironkova held serve and held on in the tie-break to win.

In another group, number one seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, beat fifth seed Hsieh Su-Wei of Chinese Taipei, 6-2, 6-2 and Italian Roberta Vinci, seeded No. 4, eased past seventh seed Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, 6-1, 6-2.

Tournament of Champions is the season-ending championships for players who have won one of the WTA International Series but have not qualified¹ for the WTA Championships.

The singles draw will see eight women players, split into two groups of four, begins as a round robin² event with top two finishers of each group advancing into the semifinals.

1 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

2 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。