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NEW YORK — If any new tennis fans turned on the U.S. Open this weekend and saw the effervescent player named Zheng Qinwen for the first time, they might assume that the 23-year-old from China always collapses dramatically on the court after she wins matches.
She does not.
They might have gathered she has no problem at all with a 5-0 deficit in a set.
That one is true.
They might also be able to pick up on one part of Zheng’s personality that shines through even when she’s dog-tired at the end of a match and trying to sound coherent as an interviewer sticks a microphone in her face.
Zheng Qinwen is doing the impossible
Zheng oozes confidence, and she isn’t afraid to let the public know it.
“Wow. What can I say? Wow,” she said proudly after coming back from a 5-0 deficit Saturday in the deciding set to beat Madison Keys in the fourth round.
Monday was more of the same.
“I guess to come back again from 0-5, that’s not lucky,” she said, both completely serious and smiling, after climbing out of yet another hole in the first set against former Grand Slam champion Iga Świątek in the round of 16.
Zheng’s run from the qualifying tournament to facing Elena Rybakina in the U.S. Open quarterfinals Wednesday is one of the more impressive feats in recent Grand Slam history, even for a player whose talent far outpaces her current ranking. It is a great comeback story: the arc of a captivating talent who played the Australian Open final in 2024, won the Olympic gold medal in Paris later that summer, then faced a career setback in July 2025 when a chronic right elbow injury required surgery. Zheng has been trying to rebuild her ranking and her game since then.
To reach the quarterfinals in New York, Zheng had to accept her newfound station in tennis — not to abandon her confidence for the sake of humility, but to combine her natural self-belief with acceptance of her reality and a new perspective.
The young woman had to live a little more life.
Though Zheng’s childhood years were far from easy — as a child, her parents left her at a tennis academy in a new city without telling her beforehand — success arrived fairly quickly when she became a professional.
Zheng Qinwen believes the painful losses of the past few months were part of a necessary humbling process. (Al Bello / Getty Images)
She gained immense fame, especially in China, as the country’s biggest tennis star since Li Na, who won the last of her two Grand Slam titles in 2014.
Zheng’s willingness to share her personality, along with her sense of humor and comic timing that translate perfectly even in her non-native language, helped her become a fan favorite on the WTA Tour, earning her the nickname “Queen-wen.” Her following only grew when she delivered China its first gold medal in tennis at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
She was a career-high No. 4 in the rankings in June 2025. Then came the surgery a month later. Zheng was sidelined, thought she’d recovered, tried to come back and was sidelined again as she worked her way back to full health. She ended her French Open this year in tears after a first-round loss. She was bounced in Wimbledon’s first round, too.
“That (French Open) loss … is one of the toughest for me to accept because I got lot of chance in that match. Even right now, I could remember how I missed those chances,” Zheng said in a news conference Monday, shuddering at the memory.
Zheng grew accustomed to certain things when she was a top-five player in 2024 and 2025. First-round byes, facing less accomplished opponents in early rounds of tournaments and playing on every given event’s bigger stages are perks top-ranked players enjoy.
As Zheng struggled to regain her top form this spring and summer, her ranking fell to No. 160 in June just before Wimbledon.
Suddenly, the 23-year-old was facing two indignities at once: a loss of status in the sport and the frustrating inability to handle matches she used to win with half the effort.
“Psychologically, it is very difficult to accept. I mean, I used to be top 10, Olympic champion. I played in the big stadiums since the beginning. Right now, you know, my ranking dropped so much after injury; I couldn’t perform well the last three, four months. I know people have lots of doubts about me, and it’s just really hard for me,” she said in a news conference this week.
A loss in the qualifying tournament at the Canadian Open in Toronto was the breaking point. Her coach sat her down and told her things couldn’t continue as they were. He suggested a training camp to try to rediscover her game.
“I think about it — it just take five seconds. I say, ‘OK, let’s do that,’” Zheng said.
She pulled out of the Cincinnati Open and retreated to IMG Academy in Florida, where there is “just tennis, gym and a resting place,” she said. She’d noticed in recent months that her conditioning wasn’t where she wanted it to be, in addition to her game.
So in Florida, she sweated. She trained for sometimes 12 hours a day.
“Those conditions were super tough. Like, every day when I finish practice, I’m sweating from up to down, like, totally. … I don’t even want to remember the practice I made before,” Zheng said.
As she worked, Zheng’s perspective began to shift. Withdrawing from Cincinnati was part of accepting that, in this moment, she belongs in qualifying tournaments.
“I just need to accept it, keep working hard, and let’s see when is my moment when I can coming back again,” Zheng said. “But I always have the confidence of myself I will be there.”
Humbled but hungry, Zheng Qinwen is learning how to win again.
Zheng finally started feeling like her old self again as she racked up wins on her way to the U.S. Open main draw. Qualifying tournaments are underappreciated for how grueling they can be, with often underrated players hungry to earn a spot in the main event.
She was sick during qualifying. She was exhausted in the heat. She said every win felt like a fight — and after so many months without being able to really compete, to suffer on a tennis court and feel validated in her suffering, she loved it.
“The second time when I came back, I had totally lost the dynamic of how to compete as an athlete. I had been every day living a life — OK, training — but without any pressure. Without any adrenaline,” Zheng said.
She now believes the painful losses of the past few months were part of a necessary humbling process. In Zheng’s mind, there are no gifts in sports, but she’d forgotten the importance of hard, constant work.
Coming through qualifying on small, outer courts in front of scant crowds has helped her find herself. In typical Zheng fashion, she’s been upfront about what she’s learned as she’s begun the long climb back to the top of the sport.
“For me, losing a match is not just about tennis. It’s more about something with yourself,” Zheng said.
“Right now, the most important challenge for me is to keep humble and be there, fight like I have nothing,” she said, before describing what she told herself while coming through the qualifiers on this run. “The reality is you are just No. 125. So, you are not the top 10 you were before.
“Don’t treat yourself so high. You are here as everyone else. You start from the ground, so stay there and keep fighting.”
