I think I fully deserve the title ‘Queen’: China’s tennis star Zheng Qinwen celebrates her Olympic gold

PARIS – As Zheng Qinwen ascended the podium to receive her historic Olympic gold medal, she also made up her mind to accept her place among tennis royalty.

Also known as “Queen Wen”, the 21-year-old felt the coronation was finally complete after

she beat Croatia’s Donna Vekic 6-2, 6-3 in the women’s singles fina

l at Roland Garros on Aug 3.

At the post-match press conference, she said: “Before today, when people called me ‘Queen’, maybe I would still humbly respond, ‘Don’t say that’. After today, knowing how significant and how hard-earned this gold medal is, I think I fully deserve the title.”

She was not tooting her own horn like the four-piece band that traditionally plays during breaks at Roland Garros. With every win, the world No. 7 has earned the right to be confident.

Some athletes come to the Olympics for the experience, but the best come to win. Zheng caught that elite mentality in time to make an 11th-hour decision to pull out of the mixed doubles competition and let Wang Xinyu partner Zhang Zhizhen instead, “because I wouldn’t have been able to go far if I played in both”.

After playing majestic tennis to ease through the first two rounds with a double bagel against Italian Sara Errani and a 6-2, 6-4 win over Dutchwoman Arantxa Rus, Zheng had to dig deep.

There was an ill-tempered 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 win over American Emma Navarro in the third round followed by a 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) quarter-final victory to send former German world No. 1 Angelique Kerber into retirement.

At that point, Zheng’s right thigh was already heavily taped up. She admitted that if this were any other tournament, she would have withdrawn. 

But since she ditched table tennis, badminton and basketball for tennis at age seven, her father had instilled in her how the Olympics are more important than even Grand Slams. So, she persevered.

Then came that watershed 6-2, 7-5 semi-final triumph over Poland’s top-ranked Iga Swiatek, her first-ever win in seven attempts against the Queen of Clay, who lost her 25-match winning streak at Roland Garros and cried for six hours afterwards.

An unprecedented women’s singles medal assured, Zheng frustrated Vekic with her strong serves, aggressive baseline play and varied shotmaking to clinch the final.

The quote “Victory belongs to the most tenacious” runs across one of the stands, and Zheng had personified that. After all, she is already used to not having holidays, as her father used to make her train even during Chinese New Year.

Being exposed to international tennis early on helped, as Zheng trained with Chinese great Li Na’s former coach Carlos Rodriguez in Beijing when she was 11. Moving to Barcelona with her mother in 2019 to further develop her game also built her mental strength.

So has life on the WTA Tour since her main-draw debut in 2021, as well as the experiences from reaching the 2023 US Open quarter-finals and 2024 Australian Open final.

Zheng said: “Two years ago, when I was 19 years old, I would have felt that this was pressure. Today I handled it really well, I just kept calm, always knowing where my position is.”

She is certainly at the top of Chinese sporting stars, alongside Athens 2004 men’s 110m hurdles gold medallist Liu Xiang, whose winning videos she has watched on loop here, and Li, a former French and Australian Opens champion.

Zheng said: “Li Na will always be Asia’s first Grand Slam women’s singles champion, and now I’m the first Olympics singles champion from Asia. I have also created history and I still have a long road ahead to win Grand Slams. I also want to reach my full potential and become a better player.

“I want to inspire kids to dream big. There will be tough challenges, doubts, effort, tears, failure but enjoy the process, for all the losses are for that moment of success. And then, you will realise that everything is worth it.”