Zheng Qinwen's form woes could soon be over: Reunites with her coach before Indian Wells

Zheng Qinwen's form has not been great since the turn of 2025 with the Chinese trailblazer not winning much after her incredible 2024. But that could be about to change as a familiar face is back ready for Indian Wells.

Pere Riba has been behind a lot of her success over the past year with the former coach of Coco Gauff having to go off for hip surgery. He has been on the mend since the start of the year.

This has meant that Zheng has faced what many players don't want especially when they are in a rhythm like the World No.8 and that is hiring stand-in coaches until the familiar face is back.

She is 1-3 this season and has only advanced beyond the first round in one of her three tournaments which was the Australian Open where she was beaten by a spoiler player in Laura Siegemund. She has also been seen playing and practicing with an elbow sleeve on her right arm.

As a result there are marked differences in how she serves which has been a weapon in the past to hoist her to the top. But also with Zheng not massively playing thus far in 2025, it is hard to gauge.

She didn't start her season until the Australian Open after deciding not to play United Cup. She had an incredibly long end to last season and so wanted more time to recover.

Diana Shnaider and Katie Boulter too also had great ends to 2024 and have both also struggled for form so going from being at the top of your game to suddenly off on holiday seems to have an effect more than those who go from poor to good form.

She hired Dante Bottini in an interim position who coached Kei Nishikori for nine years. Whether he stays in a similar sort of position as Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have with their dual coaches remains to be seen.

Riba coached Zheng from 2021-2023 before heading to the Coco Gauff camp. There was the fractious split with Wim Fissette that followed for Zheng who was dumped for a returning Naomi Osaka who then dumped FIssette to coach Iga Swiatek. A split that annoyed her and made her upset as she said last year.

“If you asked me this a few months before, after we break: one month, two months, three months, four months, I would tell you yes, absolutely. I got really fired up, I wanted to kill my opponents and get my frustration out,” she said on Tennis Channel.

“But if you ask me now, after many months, six-seven months already, I would say it’s just a normal match. I treated her like a usual opponent. Of course, I have more respect to her because she came back as a mother. I think, as a woman athlete, that’s really not easy. I have all the respect for all the tennis players who come back as mothers. Only a woman knows how difficult that is, so I treated her with big respect. Nothing to think more, just me against her, and I would give my best, anyway."