Reverse the top seed! Jinhua Yuan Yue won the first crown on clay

Born on September 25, 1998 in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, Yuan Yue started playing tennis at the age of 10 and turned professional in 2017, and Yuan Yue did not win her first ITF women's singles championship until a W25 tournament in Wuhan in 2019.

Yuan Yue has always given fans a feeling of silent hard work, and 2022 is definitely a year of transformation and growth for her, first making her Grand Slam main draw debut as a lucky loser at Wimbledon.

Despite losing her debut, she passed three qualifying rounds at the US Open and eliminated Fries 6-3 6-2 in the first round of the main draw to claim her first career Grand Slam main draw victory.

In the second round, Yuan Yue saved a set point against Romania's Begu to win 6-3 7-6 to defeat a top 50 player for the first time in her career and reach the third round of the US Open (eventually losing to eighth seed Pegula in three sets in the third round).

After the US Open, Yuan Yue participated in several ITF tournaments, winning a total of 2 championships and 2 runners-up throughout the year, and in the 2022 season, Yuan Yue's year-end world ranking entered the TOP100 for the first time, and finally settled at 74th.

In the 2023 season, Yuan Yue was already able to qualify directly for the main draw of a Grand Slam by virtue of her world ranking, but she lost to Greek star Sakkari 1-6 4-6 after poor luck in the first round of the Australian Open.

Yuan's most impressive performance throughout the 2023 season was defeating Bouzkova (first top 30 win) and Becktas at the Korea Open in October to reach the first WTA women's singles final of her career, before losing to Pegula and missing out on the title.

Yuan Yue continued her transformation in the 2024 season, first reaching the semi-finals at the Hobart Open in January, and then beating Wang Yafan, Schmidlova and others in the final at the Austin Open in March, and finally beating Wang Xiyu 6-4 7-6 to win her first WTA Women's Singles title.

She is also the 14th Chinese player to win a WTA Tour singles title, and after winning the title, Yuan Yue's world ranking rose to the top 50, setting a new career high.

At the Indian Wells Open that year, Yuan Yue successively eliminated Zheng Qinwen, Dolehyde, Kasatkina and others, and reached the quarterfinals with a wave of nine consecutive wins, and was finally eliminated by local star Gauff in the quarterfinals, with his outstanding performance in this event, Yuan Yue's world ranking refreshed to No. 37.

However, this season, Yuan Yue did not show the form she should have, and after Austin and Indian Wells stopped in the first round, her world ranking once fell outside the top 100.

Thankfully, she performed well in the W100 Oelas last week, as China's No. 2 seed reached the final and won the title in three sets against top seed Minyon, and after accumulating 100 valuable points, Yuan Yue's world ranking returned to the top 100.

She will next travel to WTA 125 to compete in St Malo, hoping that Yuan Yue can continue to maintain her hot hand and get more victories.(Source: Tennis House Author: Barbie)