Sixth seed Anett Kontaveit locks horns with Chinese No. 2 Qinwen Zheng in the round of 32 of the Adelaide International on Tuesday.
The Estonian No. 1 had an unfortunate ending to her season in 2022. She had to retire during her match in the round of 16 of the Ostrava Open against Tereza Martincova citing a lower back injury. This was after she had a great run at the Tallin Open, finishing runner-up. This was the fourth final of the year for the experienced campaigner.
Kontaveit won the St. Petersburg Open by getting the better of Maria Sakkari in the final. After testing positive for COVID-19 ahead of the Madrid Open. Kontaveit returned at the Italian Open without much success. She reached a career-high ranking of world No. 2 on 6 June 2022.
The 20-year-old has no shortage of talent. At the 2022 French Open, Zheng made her debut in the clay-court major and managed to reach the fourth round. In June, Zheng won her first WTA 125 title by beating compatriot Wang Xiyu in the Open de Valencia.
Zheng also reached her first quarterfinal at the WTA 1000 level at the Canadian Open. She eventually lost to Karolina Pliskova. The promising youngster managed to reach the finals of the Toray Pan Pacific Open but went down to Liudmila Samsonova.
Qinwen Zheng and Anett Kontaveit are yet to face each other. Therefore, the head-to-head scoreline currently stands at 0-0 as we wait to see who draws first blood.
Prediction: Anett Kontaveit to win in three sets.
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