Flavia Pennetta and Jie Zheng will face-off in the final of the WTA Auckland OpenYou can watch and bet on Pennetta v Zheng live for free at bet365 > live tennisFlavia Pennetta needed less than an hour to breeze past Angelique Kerber in Friday’s ASB Classic semi-finals, and she’s now preparing for a meeting with Jie Zheng in the final. The Italian will enter the clash with the weight of expectation on her shoulders, but she’s well aware that rankings will count for nothing when she steps on court on Saturday.
"I'm the one with the best ranking on the court, but in the last year it doesn't matter if you're number one or number 20 you can beat everyone,” said Pennetta in a recent interview. "You have to go on the court and believe you can do anything, if not, it's better if you stay away."
Having watched Zheng overcome the challenge of Svetlana Kuznetsova, Pennetta remarked, "Zheng played really good, really aggressive, really flat so it's going to be really tough tomorrow because she's in good shape. But I am also the same way so it's going to be a good fight."
She’s aware that she’ll need to adjust her game plan against her speedy opponent. "Of course I cannot play flat and the same way she plays, because she plays so well. When she plays like that you have to move a little bit, (move) the ball up and down and do different things, don't do one thing because if you do it like that she plays so well."
