At the 2024 Wimbledon Tennis Open, Chinese rising star Sun Lulu upset all the way as a qualifier. He has defeated many strong opponents, including world No. 8 Zheng Qinwen, to reach the quarterfinals in history, and has become the focus of the global tennis world with his aggressive style of play and multicultural background. However, the "best rookie", who had high hopes for the 2025 season, fell into the first major low of his career. After losing to Sheriff in the first round of Miami, she has only won three games so far in the new season, which not only exposes the flaws of her technical system, but also reflects the pain of the young player's transformation from "dark horse" to "top player".

Sun Lulu's career will explode in 2024. During Wimbledon, she defeated former US Open champion Raducanu by 52 winning points and became the seventh player in the Open era to advance from the qualifying rounds to the quarterfinals. However, as she enters the 2025 season, her form has taken a sharp turn for the worse: the Middle East season has suffered multiple "rounds"; Although Indian Wells defeated Noskova to enter the third round, she lost to Zheng Qinwen in the key game and failed to extend her winning streak; The upset in the first round of the Miami game pushed her into the whirlpool of public opinion - the win rate of the new season is less than 40%, and the ranking continues to decline.

The decline in Sun Lulu's performance is not an accidental event, and there are multiple incentives behind it: first, the technical shortcomings have been targeted and studied, Sun Lulu is good at violent forehand volleys and serves, but the problems of poor backhand stability and high error rate in the bottom line are magnified by the opponent's targeted tactics. For example, Zheng Qinwen used depth control and line change strategies at Indian Wells to force her to hit the ball frequently on the move, resulting in a surge in unforced errors. Secondly, the psychological load is overloaded, from "nobody" to "public target", Sun Lulu admitted frankly that "every game is like being observed under a microscope". After Wimbledon exploded, business activity and media attention distracted her from training, and back-to-back defeats further exacerbated self-doubt, creating a vicious circle. In the third set against Sheriff in Miami, her serve speed dropped significantly, and the quality of her baseline shot also deteriorated significantly.

Sun's technical and tactical system is "attack-oriented", which is both spectacle and risky: her first serve can reach an average speed of 175 kilometers per hour, and when combined with a wide angle of the outside corner, she can score directly or create opportunities for the next forehand attack, and her forehand winning points against Raducanu at Wimbledon accounted for 62%. As a left-hander, she prefers to actively change lanes and attack in straight lines, especially when defending passively, she still tries to return the ball with high risks, and although this "fighting" style of play can create an upset, it also leads to a high error rate. In addition, limited by her height of 1.70 meters, she has limited baseline coverage and slow pace adjustment, and often falls into passivity when facing opponents who move at large angles. This style of play has a "dimensionality reduction strike" effect in the confrontation of low-ranked players, but its unity is easy to break when facing top players. For example, in Miami, Sheriff frequently used chipping and shortening tactics to disrupt Sun's batting rhythm, forcing her to force force her in an uncomfortable hitting position, and eventually collapse by mistake.

Despite the slump, Sun still has the potential to return to the top. At just 23 years old, she has a rare talent for attacking and is highly adaptable due to her multicultural background. If the technological transformation and mentality adjustment can be completed in the next six months, the Australian Open in the second half of 2025 or 2026 is expected to become a springboard for its "rebirth". In addition, although the clay season is imminent, if you can travel lightly as a "challenger", you may be able to replicate the miracle of Wimbledon in 2024 at the French Open.

The cruelty of professional tennis is that the story of a dark horse is often short-lived, and the real superstar must go through the metamorphosis of "breaking out of the cocoon into a butterfly". For Sun, the defeat in Miami was not the end, but the beginning of transformation. As she said after beating Zheng Qinwen at Wimbledon: "The most important thing that tennis has taught me is to always be ready for the next point. This setback may be a precious "rite of passage", which allowed her to truly mature in the comprehensive upgrade of her technical, psychological and career planning.(Source: Tennis Home Author: Xiaodi)