Zheng Qinwen discusses her loss in the IW debut: many aspects were not executed well.

On March 8th in Beijing time, Zheng Qinwen competed in the second round of the WTA1000 Indian Wells tournament. Despite rallying from a 2-5 deficit in the second set, she ultimately lost to Rutjić with scores of 4-6/5-7, failing to secure a victory.

Zheng Qinwen Photo: Visual China

Summarizing the match afterwards, Zheng Qinwen stated: "This loss was mainly due to my failure to execute well in many areas, including handling crucial points and controlling the pace of the game. Overall, I feel I haven't fully entered into a competitive state. Especially my serve—my success rate today was quite low. In recent days, I haven't focused much on serving because I wanted to protect my elbow, so I didn't practice serves extensively. This reflected in the match as low serve stability, which I believe needs to be gradually improved through training. During the match, I think key points still need to be grasped better, but I believe with more matches, everything should gradually improve."

Zheng Qinwen also specifically mentioned that playing in the evening local time, temperature changes caused fluctuations in racket tension, affecting her performance. "Regarding the court conditions, especially as temperatures dropped later, I felt the racket wasn't at the tension I wanted, possibly due to incorrect pre-match details. I think court conditions are the same for both my opponent and me; if I was disturbed, it's definitely my issue. I haven't played in such noisy venues for a long time, as before my injury I mostly played in large stadiums without such an environment. Today I found it did affect me a bit, but I believe it's not the main reason. The main reason is that I still need to gradually find the rhythm of the match through playing more matches one by one."

"The first match every time is definitely tough, but when I win the first one and gradually enter the competition, my form improves. Unfortunately, today's match wasn't what I wanted, but I also saw many shortcomings through this match. Details determine success or failure—the issue with tension shows that I didn't handle the details well," Zheng Qinwen said.

Zheng Qinwen training at Indian Wells Photo: Visual China

Discussing her elbow injury, Zheng Qinwen expressed optimism. "If judged by results, this certainly isn't what I wanted, but if discussing the injury today, I personally feel quite happy. Because the injury hasn worsened; currently it's in a very positive state. After playing this match, I didn't feel more pain, meaning in future training I can focus more on serve practice. Indeed, for such a long period, I minimized serve volume as much as possible, unlike before. After today's match, I found I can practice serves more in next training sessions—that's fine."

Zheng Qinwen will continue to stay in the U.S. to compete in the WTA1000 Miami tournament. She stated she gained insights from today's loss and will continue diligent training, striving to perform better in the next match. "This loss feels different from losses during my peak period, because I know I haven't properly trained my serve. Also, my on-court feeling seemed like I hadn't yet found that competitive state. I need to ignite my passion more, as today I think I was too restrained. I hope to quickly bounce back this time; next, I need to focus my energy on training."

(Editor: Dato, interview source:微博@一阵风的网球视界)