Sun Yingsha Outlasts Hayata Hina in Seven Games, Stretching Her Win Streak to 22
China's Sun Yingsha beat Japan's Hayata Hina 4-3 in a seven-game quarterfinal at the WTT Montpellier Champions, extending a head-to-head streak that now stands at 22 wins and zero losses — a match her rival prepared for with a notebook and left in tears.
The quarterfinal at the WTT Montpellier Champions on Saturday was the kind of match that shows why a rivalry can be one-sided and riveting at the same time. China's Sun Yingsha and Japan's Hayata Hina traded games for seven full rounds before Sun closed it out 4-3, and afterwards Hayata sat at courtside reviewing the match with tears in her eyes. The scoreboard now reads 22 wins for Sun, zero for Hayata, head to head.
What Chinese viewers seized on first was the preparation. Hayata was photographed going through her notes in the final moments before stepping on court, and during the timeout in the third game her coach brought the notebook out to the sideline. The detail spread fast on Weibo, where one post showing the scene drew more than 2,500 likes, with commenters joking that she looked like a student cramming before an exam — a comparison that lands because exhaustive dossiers on opponents are exactly how China's own players prepare.
Sun, for her part, was visibly not herself. Early in the sixth game she coughed twice and looked unwell, and the umpire issued her a yellow card for holding up play. That she won from there is what one commentator singled out afterwards: the streak is remarkable, he wrote, but more worth studying was her attitude — clearly below her best condition, she fought for every point and kept her nerve on the big ones.
The 22-0 record says something about the state of the women's game: Hayata is Japan's most committed challenger, and she has never once got past the player China treats as its anchor. Sun's dominance has been built on this kind of grinding defence of a position she already holds — days earlier, in an exhibition, she refused a head start offered to her opponent, then took a set off France's Lebrun anyway.
The open question now is her body, not her record. A yellow card for time-wasting is routine; a cough that will not go away in the sixth game of a seven-game match is not, and fans spent the evening asking whether she should withdraw from her next event in Frankfurt. Hayata, meanwhile, will keep coming back — the notebook says she is not done studying.