Zheng’s fresh tactics help her reach Tokyo quarterfinals

No.1 seed Zheng Qinwen made a victorious start to her Toray Pan Pacific Open Tennis 2024 campaign, defeating home hope Moyuka Uchijima 7-5, 6-0 in 1 hour and 17 minutes to set up a quarterfinal match against No.8 seed Leylah Fernandez.

Tokyo: Scores | Draws | Order of play

Afterward, she said she had been particularly pleased with her performance as she had been “trying new things” on court.

“I’m trying to go to net more, approach and volley more,” she said.

Back in 2022, a 19-year-old Zheng reached the first WTA final of her career here, falling to Liudmila Samsonova in the title match. Two years on, she’s the reigning Olympic gold medalist and fresh off a run to the Wuhan final two weeks ago that sealed her qualification for the WTA Finals Riyadh next month.

Zheng is the only player in the WTA Finals Riyadh to compete between Wuhan and the season-ending finale, saying earlier this week that Tokyo provides an opportunity to reset outside the glare of her Chinese homecoming. In a first-time encounter with Uchijima, she did just that. After an up-and-down first set, Zheng rolled to the finish, winning the last nine games of the contest.

Elsewhere, No.3 seed Daria Kasatkina extended her winning streak to five matches following her title run in Ningbo last week with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 defeat of McCartney Kessler.

Varied repertoire: As early as the third game of the match, Zheng made good on her intention to incorporate new tactics into her game, delivering drop shots and volleys as well as her signature forehand to break Uchijima for the first time.

Zheng struggled with inconsistency in the first set, though. A series of cheap mistakes from the forehand wing handed the break back. In total, she committed 17 unforced errors in the opener and landed just 47% of her first serves.

But down 5-4, Zheng hit her stride again, winning 12 of the next 14 points to snatch the set. She maintained this dominance in the second set, during which her unforced error count went down to six and her first serve percentage went up to 58%.

Rematch with Fernandez up next: Two weeks ago, Zheng got the better of 2021 US Open finalist Fernandez for the first time in three meetings, winning their third-round tilt in Wuhan 5-7, 6-3, 6-0. That’s a result Zheng plans to repeat.

“I think she’s a really good player, and she has a different game style compared to the others,” she said. “She takes the ball really early, so you don’t have too much time between the shots. You always have to be alert, and it’s not easy to play against her. But next time I will be on my best, like what I did last time.”