\n<\/p>\n
Reigning Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek, for example, has lost all of her six meetings with Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko.<\/p>\n
After losing to Ostapenko in Stuttgart last season, Swiatek disputed she had a mental block, saying her head “was much more clear” than previous matches.<\/p>\n
But two-time major champion Coco Gauff, who lost her first seven matches to Swiatek, said finally beating the Pole allowed her to “play free” when they met.<\/p>\n
American Gauff is now on a four-match winning streak against Swiatek, although she still trails 11-5 overall.<\/p>\n
“It’s still a big gap in the head-to-head, [but] I just erase it from my mind. I can’t change the past, but I learned from it,” Gauff said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know how it will be at the end of our careers, but at least I know in future matches I won’t be starting with the mental deficit.”<\/p>\n
Norrie is not a player who seems fazed by the player across the net.<\/p>\n
But joking or not, harking back to beating Zverev when they played as teenagers over a decade ago might provide an additional boost.<\/p>\n
“Since then he’s got me every single time. He’ll know that,” 26th seed Norrie said.<\/p>\n
“But it’s nice being the underdog again. To go and play him, nothing to lose.”<\/p>\n
There is no doubt 28-year-old Zverev has more damaging weapons than the Briton, but it remains a match-up that Norrie relishes.<\/p>\n
Going toe-to-toe with the three-time Grand Slam finalist in a Melbourne five-set thriller two years ago provides optimism.<\/p>\n
“It’s a match I feel quite comfortable with – especially in the rally I’m going to get rhythm,” said Norrie, who was ranked as high as eighth in the world in 2022.<\/p>\n
“I’m going to have to really to push him and make him uncomfortable for four hours to have a chance.<\/p>\n
“He’s a very complete player and he looks like he’s playing well. I’m looking forward to it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Reigning Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek, for example, has lost all of her six meetings with Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko. After losing to Ostapenko in Stuttgart last season, Swiatek disputed she had a mental block, saying her head “was much more clear” than previous matches. But two-time major champion Coco Gauff, who lost her first seven matches<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}