China's Zheng Qinwen vows 'aggressive' play for Zhengzhou final

Zheng Qinwen said she will bring her aggressive A-game when she takes on Barbora Krejcikova in the Zhengzhou Open final on Sunday, as she looks to capture a maiden title on home soil.

The 21-year-old rising Chinese star has yet to drop a set this week at the WTA 500-level tournament and has reached her second final of the year and third overall, with a 6-2, 6-3 victory against Italian Jasmine Paolini on Saturday.

Zheng, who posted the fifth top-10 win of her career by dismissing third seed Maria Sakkari in the second round, fired five aces against Paolini and dropped just three points on her first serve during her 75-minute triumph.

🌟 𝐙𝐇𝐄𝐍𝐆—𝐙𝐇𝐎𝐔 ARE IN THE FINAL 🌟

Qinwen Zheng reaches the championship match on home soil!!!#ZhengzhouOpen pic.twitter.com/rY1gorGuYa — wta (@WTA) October 14, 2023

Still, the world number 24 feels she could have served better and vowed to up her aggression against former French Open champion Krejcikova in the final.

"Today actually I feel I could have done a lot better, especially on my serve, I could have served better direction and add more per centage," said Zheng, who claimed a maiden WTA title in Palermo in July and reached a first Grand Slam quarterfinal at last month's US Open.

"But I won the match at the end so it's great that I have another chance to show up and play the way I really want to play. I want to play aggressively for the next match. There are a lot of things I'm looking forward to improve still."

Seventh seed Krejcikova moved into her fourth final of the season and second in the last four weeks with a punishing 6-3, 6-0 result against eighth seed Daria Kasatkina.

The 27-year-old Czech has picked up titles in Dubai and San Diego this year and earned her shot at a third trophy of the season by defeating Kasatkina for a third time in four meetings.

Krejcikova saved a break point at 3-all in the opening set and never looked back, sweeping the last nine games of the contest to complete a 90-minute victory.

"I don't know too much about her game because I never played her before so I don't know what I'm going to face. Because it's different what you see on video and when you really hit the ball in reality," said Zheng of Krejcikova.

"But I'm just going to play my game, I'm going to be more aggressive, maybe more than today and at the same time be solid and just focus on the present."