Chinese Olympic champ Zheng Qinwen to tackle Australian Open without 2024 coach Pere Riba
The Spaniard, who guided her through her groundbreaking season this year, is having surgery, and will be covered by Argentine Dante Bottini
Chinese Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen will head into the Australian Open in January without Spanish coach Pere Riba, the man who guided her through a groundbreaking 2024.
Riba started working with Zheng in the summer of 2023 when she was 169th in the women’s rankings and took the 22-year-old to her first grand slam final and world No 5 ranking.
Zheng will partner up with Argentine Dante Bottini for the first grand slam of the new season – from January 12 to 26 – as Riba is set to undergo hip surgery.
One of Bottini’s first jobs as Zheng’s coach will be to help her record a win over world No 1 Aryna Sabalenka, who beat her in the final of this year’s Australia Open.
Speaking at an event in Hong Kong earlier this month, Olympic champion Zheng said she was “obsessed” with beating her Belarusian rival, whom she is yet to beat in five attempts.
“She’s my nemesis,” Zheng said. “Before, I didn’t watch her matches too much, but right now I like to watch every single match of hers because I am so obsessed with trying to find a way to beat her because I feel it’s kind of the most challenging for me.
