Zheng continues to thrive in Tokyo

By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday, October 24, 2024

As the other WTA Finals qualifiers take time to rest, recover and prepare for the tour’s prestigious season-ending championships, Zheng Qinwen continues to thrive during the Asian recovery.

Zheng has won 9 of 11 matches in Beijing, Wuhan and Tokyo following today’s 7-5, 6-0 win at the Toray Pan Pacific Open.

This year’s Australian Open finalist and Olympic gold medalist in women’s singles says she wants to work on new things and try to get to the net more.

Commendable stuff from the world No. 7, who improved to 44-16 on the season with her victory over the world No. 57 on the day.

In Riyadh, where the WTA finals begin on November 2nd, Zheng will be one of two debutants alongside Italy Jasmine Paolini.

For now, she will worry about Canada’s Leylah Fernandez, her quarterfinal opponent in Tokyo. She has lost two of three previous meetings with the former US Open finalist, but beat her 5-7, 6-3, 6-0 in Wuhan a few weeks ago.

She says she feels fit and ready for the challenge.

“After Wuhan, I was very tired physically and mentally,” Zheng said, according to the WTA. “But after almost a week off, I came back and feel fresher. My body is also doing much better compared to Wuhan.”

“I’ll just try to perform the same as in all my matches before and let’s see what happens in Tokyo this year. The WTA finals are really close, but first and foremost I try to keep my body healthy.” And then when we talk about tennis, let’s see how things go here.

This is how the other quarter-finals in Tokyo look like:

Quarterfinals Tokyo:

[1] Zheng vs. Fernandez [8]
[6] Shnaider vs. Ishii
Kenin vs. Kasatkina [3]
[9] Boulter versus Andreescu

— TennisNow (@Tennis_Now) October 24, 2024