Emma Navarro has not done her form at all good ahead of the WTA Finals which she will hope to qualify for and has handed the initiative back to Qinwen Zheng.
Navarro was dumped out earlier this morning at the
Wuhan Open which makes it back-to-back losses in Beijing and Wuhan with her record being even worse considering her early loss to Anna Blinkova last week in Hong Kong.
Since the US Open, it has been a bit of a slide for the American who has shone so brightly over the last 18 months and been one of the most consistent players on the WTA Tour.
But earlier this summer she went through and played some WTA 125k tournaments to get herself back in form. But those opportunities are few and far between nowadays with Navarro now being a top eight player.
While she now has to hope that Qinwen Zheng loses early in Wuhan to continue to put her in the driving seat amid recent blips. Albeit given it is her home tournament coming from nearby and also training as a child in Wuhan, she is more likely to be buoyed by that than be struck by any sort of fear.
They are fighting for the last spot with Barbora Krejcikova getting the final spot at the moment anyway due to winning Wimbledon so it is two fighting for one with Navarro currently marginally ahead. But her hopes haven't been dealt a huge amount of good.