From my naked eye, it appears to me that there is a lot more potency she can extract from her serve, but the mechanics are nice – a nice base from which to build.
Here’s how Zheng saw it:
“She’s really good player for me,” the Chinese said. “She hits the ball really hard, and then she had a great serve. She has huge power. She moves on the court really well.
“It was honestly a really tricky and tough match, because I knew if my mental goes a bit down or lose focus, I feel she gonna turn around the match.” In the end, Mboko was not in the same league as the Chinese on this day. Didn’t make enough proper decisions, and wasn’t consistent enough with her strengths. There were times she had balls that could ha’ve given her control of a rally, but she ended up leaving them short. There were a few times when she tried drop shots that were ill-advised.
It should be noted that Mboko is extremely quick and defends the court well. She simply didn’t get herself into offensive positions on this day when she did, she didn’t capitalize.
Admittedly, Mboko was up against a dominant player on the clay. It wasn’t the cleanest match from Zheng, but she was aggressive and really hammering her forehand when she had the chance. That left the Canadian, who is coached by former World No.3 Natalie Tauziat, out of sorts.
Qinwen today, she has really heavy and hard balls, yeah, shots on her ball. I mean, I think I was struggling a lot with that. Especially on the clay, her ball is really effective.
She’s a Raw talent no doubt about it, but one with tons of promise.
The mere fact that she made it this far on her debut from qualifying is a huge check in her box. She will learn from this experience and no doubt be better this time next year.
“The experience was pretty nice,” Mboko told the press after the match. “To make the round of 32 anyways, I think it’s a pretty good result for me. Today was a tough battle against Qinwen. She played really good tennis. Lots of things to learn and hopefully come back to my next tournament with some more positives and improved on my game.
“I think it’s just a matter of fitness, a matter of stamina, a lot of working in the gym towards those things. I think it’s just a matter of time at the end of the day.”
