If there ever was an underdog in a tennis match, it's China's Duan Yingying in her Australian Open round three clash against American Venus Williams.
Duan will face Williams on Friday after a spirited 6-1, 3-6, 10-8 win against former top-20 player Vavara Lepchenko in their round two encounter on Wednesday.
Ahead of the meeting, both players admitted that they know nothing about each other.
"I've never played Venus before, so I don't think I will have any pressure, I'll just play my game and try my best," Duan told reporters via a translator post-match, admitting she's never even seen Williams play before.
"I don't really watch that much tennis, so I think my coach will do the job to try to tell me what I need to do on the court. I will take one day off tomorrow and let the coach do the job," Duan said.
Williams defeated Swiss qualifier Stefanie Voegele 6-3, 6-2 on center court earlier on Wednesday, and says she is happy to be back while combating an elbow injury that saw her withdraw from warm-up matches in New Zealand and the Australian Open doubles tournament.
"I go and see the physios (to manage the injury), and they have been doing a great job," Williams told reporters after sidestepping a question on how bad the injury is.
Williams is on the same page as Duan in terms of knowledge about her upcoming opponent. "I don't know anything about her, I have never seen her play," Williams said.
Her injury and lack of knowledge about Duan's game may give the world no. 87 an opening to make it into the fourth round, but Duan will have to be playing at her very best to knock out a veteran like Williams.
For her part, Williams says she is going to see how things go on the day of the match.
"So I'm going to have to see how it goes, maybe get a scouting report in the warm-up when we hit the five minutes (mark) and kind of see how it feels," Williams said.
