Qinwen Zheng says whether she believes she can beat Aryna Sabalenka if they face each other at the Australian Open
Qinwen Zheng says whether she believes she can beat Aryna Sabalenka if they face each other at the Australian Open
Liam Llewellyn
Liam Llewellyn
Thu 9 January 2025 20:30, UK
Qinwen Zheng assesses whether she can beat Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka.
2024 was a breakout year for the 22-year-old, who reached a career-high ranking and claimed the biggest title of her career by winning the Olympic gold medal in Paris.
Zheng came agonisingly close to winning the WTA Finals and reached her first Grand Slam final of her career at 2024 Australian Open.
Zheng lost to Aryna Sabalenka but a year later, she will have another chance to lift the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup when the tournament begins at Melbourne Park on Sunday.
Does Qinwen Zheng believe she can beat Aryna Sabalenka in a potential Australian Open match?
Qinwen Zheng is one of the top players to watch as the 2025 season unfolds.
She had a strong second half to the season and is poised to carry the momentum into 2025. If the World number five is to win the title, she will likely have to go through the defending champion, Sabalenka.
They can face each other in the quarter-finals at the first Grand Slam of the year, two rounds before their clash in the 2024 final.
This has proven to be one of Zheng’s toughest matchups on the tour so far, but she is confident about defeating the Belarusian for the first time should they play at the Australian Open.
Aryna Sabalenka (R) of Belarus and Qinwen Zheng (L) of China pose for a photo after after the Women’s Singles Final at the Australian Open grand sl…
Photo by Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images
“Definitely I feel I am constantly improving,” Zheng told The AO Tennis podcast. “I’m sure she’s doing the same as well. I think every time I meet her it’s going to be different matches because you never know what she is going to do today and she will never know if I am going to become better.
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“I feel the more times I play against her, the more I know her game, I feel finally I can be myself. The real time I saw her on TV was when I was like 15 or 16 years old, so the first time I played against her was at the US Open.
“I need to break those idol lines [seeing her as an idol]. The second time was in Australia, that was the final and very stressful. I felt I couldn’t perform at my best.
“The third time was much easier for me, I felt I was able to play my game. I would say the time I managed to beat Swiatek at the Olympic Games gave me a lot of strength.”
Qinwen Zheng has struggled against Aryna Sabalenka in the past
Zheng’s head-to-head rivalry against Sabalenka does not make for pretty reading for her.
The pair have played against one another five times, and the World number one has triumphed on each occasion.
Furthermore, Zheng has only taken one set off Sabalenka which came in a 3-6, 7-5, 3-6 defeat on home soil in the Wuhan Open final.
The pair’s most recent meeting came in the round robin stage of November’s WTA Finals.
Sabalenka clinched a 6-3 6-4 victor in Riyadh, but she lost in the semi-finals, while Zheng made the final. However, both players lost to Coco Gauff who claimed the title for the first time.
Related Topics
Aryna Sabalenka
Australian Open
Qinwen Zheng
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