##头条首发大赛##WTA##郑钦文#
In the final of the Palermo Women's Open, which ended at 5:30 Beijing time this morning, Zheng Qinwen lived up to expectations and defeated the powerful Mukhova 6:4/4:6/6:2, successfully defending her title for the first time in her career... In fact, Mukhova is not easy to play, although ranked only No.35, she is definitely a strong player, won her first WTA title at the Korea Open in 2019, won the runner-up on clay at Roland Garros in 2023, defeated the TOP10 many times in her career, most recently defeated Sabalenka in the semifinals of the French Open last year, and also reached the semifinals of the Australian Open and the US Open, she was interrupted for 8 months due to two abdominal injuries. During the period, the ranking fell from NO.19 to NO.76, and now it is back to NO.35... So the ranking does not reflect her true strength.
Sure enough, Zheng Qinwen's match with her that ended early this morning was hard, Zheng Qinwen won 6:4 in the first set, but it was a little worrying from the perspective of court technology, three aces and two double faults were higher than the opponent's one, and the first-serve goal rate, first-serve win rate, and first-serve win rate were all lower than Mukhova 12%, 5.6%, and 5.7%, so it is not difficult to see that it is an old problem in the first service link, and it can be compensated by other means when facing opponents who are not very strong, but it will be very passive when encountering first-class playersFortunately, in the first set, Zheng Qinwen was 26.2% higher than Mukhova in terms of second serve win rate and second serve scoring rate, which made Zheng Qinwen have one more break success than his opponent, and it was also the key to winning the first set...
Sure enough, the form was reversed in the second set, Zheng Qinwen's first-serve success rate was basically equal to that of the opponent and even exceeded by nearly 3 percentage points, but the first-serve scoring rate and the first-serve winning rate were much lower than the opponent's, and the advantage in the second-serve winning rate and the second-serve winning rate was only a single-digit lead, which was not enough to offset the weakness in handling the first serve, and made his own break times in this set less than Mukhova once, so it was Mukhova 6:4 to pull back a game...
However, the good thing this time is that Zheng Qinwen has not been affected in any way, and his psychological state has been adjusted very well, and he has achieved an amazing final victory from 3:0 to 6:2 in the opening set... The technical statistics also support Zheng Qinwen's success in defending the title for the first time in his career, with a success rate of 69.6%, 18.1% higher than Mukhova, and the first serve win rate and the first serve scoring rate are the same 25% higher, which is enough to show that Zheng Qinwen's mentality and desire to win are very high, and at the same time, the winning rate of the second serve and the scoring rate of the second serve are also better than Mukhova, and the chance of breaking naturally is far greater than that of the opponent... This is also the reason for the collapse of Mukhova in the deciding set.
Congratulations to Zheng Qinwen on his first successful defense of the title, relieving the pressure since the Australian Open in the first half of the year, and the next Olympics and the start of the hard court season in North America is the real test.