Wang Qiang reaches Wuhan Open semifinals

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Chinese No.1 tennis player Wang Qiang's winning streak on home soil continued on Thursday as she defeated Olympic champion Monica Puig 6-3, 6-1, becoming the first Chinese player to reach the Wuhan Open semifinals in history.

Wang has already made the history into quarterfinals after a 13-match consecutive win over Daria Gavrilova on Wednesday.

A close first set was followed by a surprisingly one-sided second set in which Wang three times broke Puig's service game, with the Puerto Rican growing visibly more frustrated as the game wore on.

Puig's below-par performance was exemplified by her double-fault on Wang's match point, sealing the match for the Wang in just 67 minutes.

"In the first set, Puig played very aggressively," said Wang afterwards. "I tried to play more returns to her shots because her strategy would also have greater errors." she said.

Screenshot from WTA Twitter account.

"This is the first time I've made it into the semifinal of a Premier 5 tournament, so I'm very happy today."

The 14 straight WTA wins made Wang to face Anett Kontaveit, who knocked out Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-4 in the day's late match.

(With input from Xinhua)