The first two months of the 2025 season were not easy for Zheng Qinwen, the first sister of China's Golden Flower. Before the new season, Riba had to leave temporarily due to hip surgery, and Zheng Qinwen seemed to be unable to cope under the interim coach's coaching: the Australian Open upset loss to German veteran Sigmund, and the Middle East two tournaments were both first-round tours. With only one win so far in the new season, she is clearly far from what everyone hoped for her.

The 2024 season is a season to be proud of for Zheng Qinwen: the Australian Open runner-up proved that she has what it takes to win Grand Slam titles, the Olympic gold medal has made her a representative of China's new generation of sports stars, and the runner-up in the Wuhan Open and year-end finals, it can be said that her achievements in one year are definitely among the best in Chinese tennis. Just when everyone had greater expectations for her new season, the slump of nearly two months poured cold water on all Chinese fans.

Technically, while Zheng has a strong serve, heavy forespin and light movement, her weaknesses in her extensions and backhand are always obvious, and her backhand is often a breakthrough for her opponents. In addition, the simplification of the stroke pattern also allows opponents to often guess the direction of her shot. For example, when the opportunity arises, she always unexpectedly hits the forehand diagonal, which is rarely seen in her technical characteristics, and she is often in a passive position when facing a variety of players. Coming to the new season, we can see that Zheng Qinwen is wearing thick elbow pads, which are clearly tailored to increase her strength. Last year, whenever she was about to make a further breakthrough, she fell into the shadow of Sabalenka, forcing her to make some changes to her technique. However, the style of play has long been fixed, and the unsuitable style of play makes Zheng Qinwen unable to play the dominant ball in the past, and the painful period brought by the change opens a bright road to her future or the way to sinking, which needs to be considered in a comprehensive manner.

Psychologically, Zheng Qinwen gives people the impression of self-confidence and even conceit, such as "I am stronger than Krajickova", "When Rybakina beats me, I feel like she is going to win the championship", "I have the strength to beat anyone", all of which show her overconfident personality traits all the time. But the flamboyance of language can't hide her insecure and fragile psychology. When she was forced to part with Riba the year before, she had a competitive feeling when she saw Riba coaching Gauff on the training ground, and this sense of security after Riba returned gave her a lot of confidence and energy, so that she could better release herself and achieve excellent results. Although fans have expressed doubts about Riba's coaching ability, as the first coach of Zheng Qinwen's career, Riba can bring Zheng Qinwen something that other coaches cannot and will never be able to give.

Despite a major setback at the beginning of the 2025 season, the downturn during this period can allow Zheng Qinwen to calm down and summarize his problems. First of all, in terms of physical fitness, she needs to introduce a more scientific training plan to enhance the endurance of multi-set matches; In terms of technology, the stability of volleys and backhands in front of the net is optimized to reduce unforced errors; In terms of competition strategy, we will participate selectively to maintain our form, and concentrate on attacking top competitions such as Grand Slam and Olympics. Thankfully, in the face of defeat, Zheng always showed a positive and reflective attitude, emphasizing "go back to rest and work hard for the next stop", this fast-adjusting mentality helps her accumulate experience in the face of adversity and work harder to become a better version of herself.

After a brilliant 2024 season, Zheng Qinwen's career is in a critical transition period in order to make himself stronger, and the interweaving of crisis and opportunity is both a test and an opportunity for transformation. If she can break through the shackles of stability and fitness and give full play to her technical advantages, she is expected to overcome the temporary slump and hopefully surprise the fans in the rest of the matches.(Source: Tennis Home Author: Xiaodi)