Portrait

[jimlosaltos]

This month's tour portrait features 20 yo Zheng Qinwen, ranked 23rd.

Frequent contributor to Tennisplayer.net, Kyle LaCroix, who mentioned he had worked with her, commented in one of my TPN forum posts that she is quite good and has two modes: "Hard and harder" <g>.

She won her first main tour title in Palermo a while back. WTA noted her as a proponent of serve + 1 tennis: "According to the official WTA Tour player stats, the 20-year-old wins about three quarters of her first serve points, adding up to 75.7% of service games won." "She also became the second teenager to make a WTA 500-level or higher final in the season after Coco Gauff. "Took Iga to 3 sets in the San Diego final. Has wins over Jabeur, Mugu, Badosa. Highest rank to date 19.
Baseline: https://www.tennis.com/baseline/arti...ta-title-china

A WTA feature calls Zheng one of the principal proponents of "Serve Plus One" play on the tour.

Tour Portrait:

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/tourportraits/jim_fawcette/qinwen_zheng/

Second photo shows her Western grip:

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[jimlosaltos]

US Open just published a feature on Zheng Qinwen, our Tour Portrait for this month.

Excerpts: "In 2022, China’s Zheng Qinwen made a stunning debut on the Grand Slam stage, winning her first main-draw match at all four majors .. { things haven't gone as well so far this year).

"This summer Zheng parted ways with Pere Riba, the current coach of Coco Gauff, and hired coaching legend Wim Fissette, the man who has guided numerous players to Grand Slam titles, including Kim Clijsters and, most recently, Naomi Osaka.

When a player with the raw talent of Zheng, who is blessed with breathtaking power and athleticism, hires a coach with Fissette’s track record, the tennis world takes notice.

Fans in Flushing Meadows are noticing as well. They are catching a glimpse of what Zheng and Fissette might produce together this week, as the 21-year-old has defeated Nadia Podoroska and Kaia Kanepi to reach the third round at the US Open for the second consecutive year.

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“I think on the clay she has definitely found her game,” he told USOpen.org on Friday. “On hard, she’s still looking to make a few little adjustments. She needs to find that game and what she needs to do to beat the best players in the world. As soon as she finds that, it will make her more calm on the court and everything will be clear.”

Zheng says it has been difficult to make a coaching change mid-season, but believes that she took the right decision.

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The Belgian coach, who has also worked with Victoria Azarenka, Angelique Kerber and Simona Halep, is confident that Zheng will make strides, because he has seen the way she works.

What impresses him the most about her?

“First of all her desire to be the best,” he said. “She’s willing to do everything it takes. Athleticism is a very important one. And weapons. She’s a very explosive player with a big serve and a really big forehand. Also the backhand is really strong.

“I think from her strokes and athleticism there’s a lot there, but obviously she needs to grow as a player, make better choices.”


https://www.usopen.org/en_US/news/ar...seek_hardcourt _domination.html

[jimlosaltos]

Zheng next plays no 5 seed Ons Jabeur, who came from behind in her match last night (Saturday) and seems to still be struggling with the aftermath of some respiratory illness.

[jimlosaltos]

A bit of a surprise so far (Monday afternoon). Zheng dominated the first set vs Jabeur. In fairness, not sure of Ons is truly 100% after she became one of several players coming down with some respiratory bug.

Zheng has won a higher percentage so far behind her own second serve (50%) than Ons did on her first serve 47% and 100% at the net ( Ok, only 6 of 6, but still).

[jimlosaltos]

From: @BendouZhang


1. Zheng Qinwen becomes the 6th Chinese Grand Slam quarterfinalist after Li Na, Zheng Jie, Peng Shuai, Zhang Shuai and Wang Qiang.
2. Now all of Wim Fissette's players reached at least Grand Slam quarterfinal.
3. Both of last year's runner-ups were defeated by Chinese players.

[jimlosaltos]

NYT's today has a portrait of Qinwen Zheng, sub link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/s...smid=url-share

Interesting that her new coach, Fissette, wants to make her more aggressive, saying players aren't as aggressive as the think they are, while what feedback we've gotten here and has been published in a WTA article is that she has two gears "hard and harder". Cognitive dissonance.

Excerpts:

"Zheng Qinwen, the brightest of China’s growing cohort of bright tennis lights, was 7 years old when she first picked up a racket.

Almost instantly, she was among the best children her age in her hometown, Shiyan, by Chinese standards a smaller city with 1.1 million people. She loved the sport, and after two months she and her father traveled to Wuhan, a few hours’ drive away and with a population of more than 11 million people, to show off her game to a more advanced coach. The opportunity thrilled her, and she soaked up compliments.

Her father, however, left out one detail, which she only learned after the hitting session. Since she had done well, she would not be coming home with him and instead would stay in Wuhan to train.

“I cried a lot,” Zheng, 20, said during a recent interview.

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"Zheng and every young Chinese player carries a unique burden onto the tennis court, especially now. Their generation came of age as part of the tennis boom that Li Na and, to a lesser extent, Peng Shuai, wrought to the country. Both, especially Li, who became the first person from China to win a Grand Slam singles title, were groundbreaking figures, inspiring countless children in China and in the Chinese diaspora to pick up tennis rackets. With more than one billion people, China figured to be in prime position to become the next great tennis power.

While that has not happened yet — though earlier this year Wu Yibing became the first Chinese player to win an ATP title — Zheng has been a prospect to watch for several years now. After roughly three years in Wuhan, she moved to Beijing, to train at an academy overseen by Carlos Rodriguez, who coached Li, her tennis idol. She also caught the attention of the same agency that had represented Li and earned an opportunity to move to Barcelona to train among the sport’s top rising stars and be closer to the world’s most competitive junior tournaments.

This time, her parents thought that was too far for their daughter to travel on her own. Her mother decided to move with her while her father remained in China, and her mother has mostly been with her ever since. She turned professional at 15, and began a mostly steady climb up the rankings.

At the French Open last year, she appeared on the verge of a breakthrough, winning the opening set of her match against top-ranked Iga Swiatek before succumbing to menstrual cramps. But then her progress seemed to stall.

This spring, her management team reached out to Wim Fissette, a Belgian known as one of the top coaches in the game. Fissette has previously worked with a slew of Grand Slam singles champions, including Kim Clijsters, Simona Halep, Angelique Kerber and Naomi Osaka.

In Zheng he saw an explosive, athletic player, but a young woman who still seemed fairly raw. He did some due diligence and learned she had a reputation as a hard worker who was extremely ambitious.

“A really interesting project where you can, like, really build the player,” Fissette said of Zheng on Tuesday.

[jimlosaltos]

The US Open highlighted our Tour Portrait subject this month as one of 6 "Breakthrough Players" at this year's Open.

Excerpt: Zheng Qinwen

The 20-year-old caught the attention of the wider tennis world with a fourth-round showing last spring at Roland Garros. A year on, Zheng was a looming threat in Queens as the world No. 23.

The 2022 WTA Newcomer of the Year prevailed in back-to-back, gritty three-setters in Round 2 and Round 3, and then truly glistened in dispatching last year's runner-up Ons Jabeur,6-2, 6-4, to chalk up a maiden Grand Slam quarterfinal berth.

Eventual finalist Aryna Sabalenka halted Zheng 6-1, 6-4, a defeat that has inspired Zheng to evolve her all-court artillery.

"In my mind, I really wanted to go farther. There is still a lot of room for me to improve," Zheng said. "Especially she [Sabalenka] makes me think a lot, once again, that I have to go back and put some work on in my tennis."

It was a momentous fortnight for Chinese tennis. Zheng's countrywoman Wang Xinyu also made the last 16, marking the first time in US Open history that two Chinese women advanced to the fourth round. zz0.f3gqiurxbyszz

https://www.usopen.org/en_US/news/articles/2023-09-09/six_breakthrough_players_who_took_the_spotlight_at_the_2023_us_open.html

[jimlosaltos]

Zheng wins her second title today. WTA: "Zheng Qinwen thrilled her homeland crowds at the Bank of Communications Zhengzhou Open on Sunday, as the Chinese No.1 pulled off a 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 win over No.7 seed Barbora Krejcikova to claim the WTA 500 title."

Trivial imbroglio on social media: "While here on Twitter fans seem to enjoy Zheng Qinwen singing, on social media in China, fans are so embarrassed that the host not only pushed Qinwen to sing, but also asked Krejcikova, who just lost the final, learned how to say "I love Zhengzhou" in Mandarin"

Music? : https://x.com/WTA/status/1713563140925878386?s=20