diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/monitoring.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/monitoring.sgml
index 19540206f9..03f440aa25 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/monitoring.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/monitoring.sgml
@@ -1177,8 +1177,8 @@ postgres   27093  0.0  0.0  30096  2752 ?        Ss   11:34   0:00 postgres: ser
      </row>
      <row>
       <entry><literal>WalSenderWriteData</literal></entry>
-      <entry>Waiting for any activity when processing replies from WAL
-       receiver in WAL sender process.</entry>
+      <entry>Waiting to write WAL data to WAL receiver in
+       WAL sender process.</entry>
      </row>
     </tbody>
    </tgroup>
diff --git a/src/backend/replication/walsender.c b/src/backend/replication/walsender.c
index 23baa4498a..acaec753c1 100644
--- a/src/backend/replication/walsender.c
+++ b/src/backend/replication/walsender.c
@@ -3115,15 +3115,22 @@ WalSndWakeup(void)
 }
 
 /*
- * Wait for readiness on the FeBe socket, or a timeout.  The mask should be
- * composed of optional WL_SOCKET_WRITEABLE and WL_SOCKET_READABLE flags.  Exit
- * on postmaster death.
+ * Wait for readiness on the FeBe socket, a timeout, or the latch to be set.
+ * The mask should be composed of optional WL_SOCKET_WRITEABLE and
+ * WL_SOCKET_READABLE flags.  Exit on postmaster death.
+ *
+ * Overwrite wait_event with WAIT_EVENT_WAL_SENDER_WRITE_DATA
+ * if we have pending data in the output buffer and are waiting to write
+ * data to a client.
  */
 static void
 WalSndWait(uint32 socket_events, long timeout, uint32 wait_event)
 {
 	WaitEvent event;
 
+	if (socket_events & WL_SOCKET_WRITEABLE)
+		wait_event = WAIT_EVENT_WAL_SENDER_WRITE_DATA;
+
 	ModifyWaitEvent(FeBeWaitSet, FeBeWaitSetSocketPos, socket_events, NULL);
 	if (WaitEventSetWait(FeBeWaitSet, timeout, &event, 1, wait_event) == 1 &&
 		(event.events & WL_POSTMASTER_DEATH))