No surprises! It's time to come or it's coming! Belarusian star Azarenka defeated qualifier Gunuvi in straight sets this morning, and will face China's No. 1 Zheng Qinwen in the women's singles round.

China's first sister is not in good form in the new season, with only 1 win and 3 losses before the Indian Wells tennis tournament, and all the 1000-point tournaments in the two tournaments are in one round, and the world's top 10 rankings are also in jeopardy. Switching to the Indian Wells 1000 tournament, the signing of the Chinese sister is still not good, the second round against the two-time Grand Slam champion Azarenka, the third round against the Czech fierce woman Noskova, the fourth round against Badosa, and the quarter-finals against the former world No. 1 Swiatek, all of them are tough battles.

It is worth mentioning that before the game, Tennis TV did a survey to speculate on Zheng Qinwen's results in Indian Wells this year, and the results showed that quite a few experts believed that it was likely to be upset in the first two rounds, and they were more optimistic about Badosa in the same group.

In a poll conducted on a domestic social media, more than 65% of netizens believe that Zheng Qinwen may be upset, and about 12% of netizens believe that Zheng Qinwen may retire due to injury in the game, and this result is also quite surprising.

Interestingly, the famous "Tennis" magazine also made a similar statistic, in the "tennis experts" they invited to vote on this year's women's players may be upset, China's first sister Zheng Qinwen led with 4 votes, while Sabalenka and Paulini followed with 2 votes each, and it is worth mentioning that the Australian Open women's singles champion Keys also received 1 vote.

It is not surprising that the outside world unanimously looks down on China's first sister. On the one hand, Zheng Qinwen's form has been sluggish since the start of the new season, which may be related to the excessive energy she has invested off the field, or it may be due to the failure to train well in winter training, but from the current point of view, it will take at least a long time before she can find her form last year. On the other hand, Zheng Qinwen's elbow injury has been affecting her state since last year's winter training, and not long ago, when training in Indian Wells, Zheng Qinwen's elbow brace was still worn, which will largely make many people worry about her physical condition, but from the current point of view, the elbow injury has not affected her much.

In fact, many people's worries about Zheng Qinwen's upset are also due to multiple reasons, in addition to many problems with their own state, the strength of the opponent is also a very important consideration.

Zheng Qinwen's second-round opponent, Azarenka, despite being 35 years old, is definitely not to be underestimated as a two-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1. There have been two meetings between the two sides in the past, both of which Azarenka won. The first meeting between the two sides took place in Adelaide in 2023 when Azarenka beat the fledgling Chinese 6-2 7-5, while the second met in the third round in Miami last year, when Azarenka defeated the Chinese sister who had recently reached the Grand Slam final 6-4 7-5. Therefore, it can be said that Azarenka can definitely be called the "nemesis" of China's first sister!

In this regard, some netizens said when looking forward to the second round of the women's singles, "Azarenka has long passed her prime, and her current game mainly depends on the change of the bottom line points, as well as various landing point choices on the serve, and the relative relaxation of the mentality is also an advantage." In terms of starting speed and foot movement, Aza is honestly a bit slow. In the face of such an opponent, Zheng Qinwen must strive to play a heavier ball quality to mobilize the opponent, and today Ngunu frequently released small balls and scored a lot of points, which the Qinwen team can learn from. ”(Source: Tennis Home Author: Lu Xiaotian)