It takes a lot of courage to go for broke when you’re under pressure. When you’re trying to reach your first Grand Slam semifinal, it needs conviction, trust in your technique and above all, a sense of calm.
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When it comes to serving, Zheng Qinwen has all those attributes in abundance, as she showed at Australian Open 2024 on Wednesday when she overcame some early nerves to beat Anna Kalinskaya 6-7(4) 6-3 6-1 for a place in the last four.
If the first set was shaky, the second and third were Zheng at her best, her serve clicking into gear to send her through to a semifinal against Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska.
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Standing with two set points to her name in the second set, Zheng rocked back, threw up the ball with her distinctive ball toss and sent it careering down the T for an ace, wrapping up the set and taking it to a decider.
In the third, her serve was flowing at its best, never more so than when she was serving in the sixth game. Leading 4-1, her momentum could easily have been broken by the medical timeout taken by Kalinskaya at the change of ends.
But Zheng took the opportunity to hit a few more serves while her opponent was having treatment, and it paid dividends. From 0-15, she went ace, ace, ace, and though Kalinskaya got back to deuce, she finished it off to extend her lead.
The flurry of aces extinguished any hopes Kalinskaya may have held of forcing a comeback. Kalinskaya had acquitted herself well in her first slam quarterfinal, but the damage had been done. Zheng duly broke again to win the match.
Zheng finished with 10 aces, taking her tally for the tournament to 44, 19 more than the next best, Alycia Parks. And though Kalinskaya took both her break points, the fact that Zheng gave up only two in total tells its own story.
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She also won 80 per cent of points on her first serve, compared to 60 per cent for Kalinskaya, and she’s second only to Aryna Sabalenka in points won on first serve. Despite all that, Zheng feels there is room for improvement.
“I think my serve just gets better and better by the match going,” she said. “Of course I think there is lot of things I need to improve, especially in the percentage.
“But I will say if I'm really totally there, I have, like, really good serve, but, you know, I still think there is lot of margin I can still improve a lot in my serve. So I will just say keep going and, yeah, and trying to improve in the future.”
The other thing that’s keeping Zheng on track is her calmness. If her serve gets her out of trouble, her mindset is doing just as much work.
“When I lost the first set, I tried to tell myself, stay focused,” she said.
“Don't think too much. Just focus right now. Because the first set already prove (that) thinking too much is not helping, and you can't play your best tennis there. So I'm really happy that I'm able to change that and to win the match at the end.”
Zheng admitted she’s delighted with her efforts so far, but the work is not done yet.
“The feeling is … happiness,” she said.
“Of course I'm proud of myself. But this is just the beginning. I still need to play tomorrow. So I need to change fast the mentality and try to stay (with) my game plan for tomorrow.”