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January 25, 2024,
It is time for the 2024 Australian Open semi-finals. Of the four names entering play, two we are very familiar with, two, very deserving but perhaps not known as much.
So, what does that tell you?
If we have two players that need further research, who reached the semi-finals of a Grand Slam, what in the world happened to the famous stars and higher seeds?
They got knocked out.
Many of them early.
Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka will meet, in somewhat of a re-match, of their 2023 US Open final. The tennis world is very familiar with them.
China’s Qinwen Zheng and Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska will meet in the other semi-final.
As the expression goes, Coco and Aryna need no introductions.
Let’s meet Dayana Yastremska and Qinwen Zheng.
Dayana has been ranked as high as world No. 21 by the WTA, achieved in January of 2020.
Our rising star has won three WTA Tour titles. Her best performance at the majors is right now, reaching the semifinals at the 2024 Australian Open.
A junior Grand Slam tournament runner-up in both singles and doubles, Yastremska had a quick breakthrough onto the WTA Tour.
She made her debut in the top 100 and won two titles when she was 18 years old, including her first at the Hong Kong Open in 2018. She had a very successful 2019 that helped her rise from No. 58 at the start of the year up to No. 22 by the end of the season.
We watched more of her tape and she is a tall athlete who hits the ball with precision and accuracy.
Her former coach Sascha Bajin described Yastremska in the following terms: “She’s a great mover and she has incredible power. Her ground strokes are very powerful.”
Ms. Yastremska is an aggressive baseline player, whose attacking style allows her to hit a large number of winners.
Our luminary hit 33 winners in her first two finals, and 49 winners when she won her third title.
Her very aggressive playing style also lends itself to a high unforced error count. Sounds like another very tall girl in France’s Oceane Dodin.
As of the 2019 Australian Open, Dayana was ranked as the most aggressive player on the WTA Tour, having led the tour with 28.6 per cent of her shots ending in a winner, an unforced error, or an opponent’s forced error.
Her powerful groundstrokes are hit with relentless power, depth, and speed, with her forehand being her best shot, due to the extreme amount of racquet head speed.
Watching her on film, we saw that up close and personal.
She is capable of winning a high percentage of points when she hits an inside-in forehand in particular, and she can hit winners from any position of the court with her forehand.
This statuesque warrior also possesses an incredibly powerful backhand, which is typically hit flat, allowing her to hit sharply angled winners. She can also strategically apply slice to her backhand, allowing her to break up the pace of rallies and construct points intelligently.
Impressive.
Get this.
Her average first serve speed is about 100 miles per hour, although her first serve speed can scale at 116 mph, allowing her to serve numerous aces in any match, sometimes getting her out of trouble.
Now do you know her a little better?
Qinwen is going to have her hands full.
Regarding Qinwen, she was moving up in the rankings so aggressively that on November 5, 2023, our associates at fcielitecompetitor.com has this to say about her, “Someone is making a big move and if you are a female tennis fan, you should take notice.
She is ranked number 15 in the entire world and yet we have the strong sense, that outside of the super fans, few have heard of her.
Zheng Qinwen is her name. Or is it Qinwen Zheng?
When researching her body of work, it is truly hard to tell since many publications use the names interchangeably.
The informative official tennis site of the Australian Open, ausopen.com educates, “At the US Open, she was asked how she preferred to be addressed; the Chinese convention is for a person’s surname to precede their given name.”
Okay, we understand.
Kind of.
The given name is your first name.
The surname is your last name.
So, technically, as we see it in the West, her first name is Qinwen and her last name is Zheng.
But, it is okay with her, if you use her last name, first.
Okay, Fine.
No matter, her first or last name?
Winning profusely is her game. As of this November 8, 2023, writing, she has won 172 singles matches.
Did you know that?
How much do you know about her? Could you write, say, four sentences about her?
Don’t feel alone if you can’t.
We are going to remedy that here and give Zheng a little of the direct attention she deserved.
She first came to our attention at the 2023 US Open when elite player Ons Jabeur was injured and playing poorly. We thought, given the pre-US Open clippings, she might have a premature exit.
Zheng made sure of it.
At usopen.org they posted on September 4, 2023, “A day after defending champion Iga Swiatek made an early exit from Flushing Meadows, 20-year-old Zheng Qinwen pummeled the ball with authority to defeat No. 5 seed and 2022 runner-up Ons Jabeur, 6-2, 6-4, and reach the US Open quarterfinals for the first time in her career.”
Standing ovation to that.
From the beginning of the match, the world’s biggest stage did not seem to intimidate Zheng, who stayed aggressive, directing the action with her hard, flat shots and breaking Ons in the third game.
So, she is only twenty years old. Amazing.”
That was the quarters and now, she is into the semi-finals.
That is moving up big time.
So, at the 2024 Australian Open, some big named stars exited early. Naomi Osaka, Sofia Kenin Maria Sakkari and Sloane Stephens, to name a few.
Then there were the highly ranked seeds like Iga Swiatek, Ons Jabeur and Jessica Pegula who were sent packing as well.
The legendary Caroline Wozniaki had a great comeback run at the 2023 US Open but went down quietly in the second round here.
We will say it again. Coco Gauff and Aryna Sabalenka need no introduction but whoever wins that match will face a rising star, shooting skyward, from the other semi-final in Qinwen Zheng and Dayana Yastremska.
And, if one of the latter two win the 2024 Australian Open, based upon what we’ve seen, it will absolutely not be a shock.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayana_Yastremska
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