Naomi's best win of the year by a clear 40 ranking places
Her third best, and only third top 100 win, in the last 12 months
And, from a set down again, too.
Very good.

Naomi getting her game face on, just ready for the grass court bonanza?

Naomi v Zheng
H2H 1-1
Gifu 2015 Zheng 5-7 2-6
Rome 2016 Broady 6-3 6-2

Zheng was struggling last year but has returned to form in the last month or so winning the $125K last week.

Great win Naomi.

I thought it would be Wickmayer playing Zheng, so just by getting to this stage is a great effort for Naomi and given her seeding, she's done better than expected.

Zheng may be on a good run, but these events are generally weak given that most of the tour are either resting, playing Fed Cup (last week) or in Europe. The last direct qualifier in ZhengZhou 125k last week was ranked 258.

Look at the contrast to an upcoming 100k event in France in 2 weeks:

www.itftennis.com/procircuit/tournaments/women's-tournament/info.aspx
There, the final direct main draw entry is ranked 124 which would have made you 7th seed in ZhengZhou and Zaja, who qualified directly in 258, wouldn't have even made qualifying in that 100k event as she's ranked lower than both Izzy Wallace and the racket smashing, Gabi victim Reix.

Here's SaiSai's run:
Peng - looks a good win on paper, but if you look further, Peng has been struggling with a knee injury for a while and has not won a match since early November, she's lost all her 6 matches in 2018 and has lost all 12 sets as well.
F Liu - ranked 179
J Lu - ranked 210 - lost in straights to Robson and Gabi in Oz this year
Han - currently ranked 150 (which would likely have been lower last week given her SF run in the weak field)
Wang Yafan - very good win - Wang has been in very good form recently

This week:
Guo - ranked 329
Cako - ranked ranked 238
Han again - see last week and she retired after 5 games

So that's 8 wins in a row, but it's also a lot of cheap points gathered when you consider it's only really been Yafan where she has been up against it.

I'd still make Zheng favourite as she is playing at home and you can never tell with the Naomi serve these days, but she's certainly got as good as chance as she did yesterday and hopefully we wake up to some good news.

Peter too wrote:

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Zheng had a couple of stand-out wins earlier this year against Alison Van Uytvanck 49 and Elina Svitolina 4 but she has also lost to a number of much lower ranked players.

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So essentially with these two this could be anything. Hope it's something good.

Jaggy1876 wrote:

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Almost no way of telling with these 2, beauty of the womens game how erratic it can be. Lets hope in Naomis favour. Im assuming she is totally skipping the clay, anybody know?

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Looks like it. After China this week, she's scheduled for 3 events in Japan , so depending on how well she does in the 3rd tournament, she'll be back in Europe any time between the 15th and 20th May and FO quals is dues to start on May 21st.