Zheng Qinwen summons inner strength to claim China’s first Olympic singles gold medal with victory against Donna Vekić

Zheng Qinwen arrived at the Paris Olympics as a top-10 player but an unlikely candidate to win the title. She will leave as China’s first-ever tennis singles champion, the biggest accolade of her young career.

Against Croatia’s Donna Vekić, Zheng produced a stunning display of powerful hitting on the clay of Roland Garros, triumphing 6-2, 6-3 in a hard-fought gold medal match.

Don’t be fooled by the lopsided scoreline – Zheng was made to battle throughout the one-hour, 44-minute contest, saving multiple break points and pouncing on every opportunity she had to get further in front.

Upon winning match point, her delight was laid bare. She dropped to the ground, stretching her arms out wide and caking her back in red clay.

Even Zheng’s idol, two-time grand slam champion Li Na, did not match this feat, never finishing better than fourth at an Olympics.

“That was an unbelievable experience for me. I just made history and I’m so happy for this moment,” Zheng told reporters, adding: “You can see the strength I have in this tournament, the behavior, the eyes, the hunger that I have, it’s different than all the other tournaments I play.”

Perhaps Zheng’s best – and certainly least expected – victory at these Olympics came in the semifinals, ending world No. 1 Iga Świątek’s 25-match winning streak at Roland Garros.

That win would have done wonders for the 21-year-old’s confidence ahead of the final, and she started the match with purpose and aggression by breaking Vekić’s serve for a 2-0 lead.

Vekić, already making history as the first Croatian tennis player to reach an Olympic singles final, took longer to settle. She soon proved equal to Zheng’s big hitting, engineering break points of her own but without capitalizing on them.

You perhaps sensed the 28-year-old’s frustration when Zheng thumped a forehand past her at 4-1 in the first set, and Vekić could only respond by raising her arms in an exasperated fashion.

More break points went begging the next game – Zheng salvaging the game magnificently with a drop volley – and from there it looked hard for Vekić to find a way back into the set.

After 48 minutes, the sixth seed had the early lead sewn up, taking her first set point when Vekić failed to retrieve a forehand.

A brief ray of sunlight swept across the court at the start of the second set but it was still a much cooler Parisian day than previously this week, a welcome relief from the hot and humid playing conditions.

A huge forehand saw Zheng take an early 2-0 lead in the second set before Vekić hit back immediately with her first break of the match.

At 4-3, however, Zheng had another opening. She put away a smash to create two break points – Vekić hurling her racket to the ground in anger – and soon after found herself serving for the title.

The rest was a formality, Zheng breezing through the game and fittingly rounding off the victory with another forehand winner, her 11th of the contest. It marked China’s first medal of any color in the singles and the country’s second in tennis after Li Ting and Sun Tiantian won gold at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

“There is a strength holding me from behind that I just feel I never give up during the Games,” said Zheng. “I don’t know why, because in a usual match I just let the match go away. But at this Olympic Games, I just hold and hold, keep fighting and finally I made it.

“I’m really happy to be here, to have won the gold medal, to represent my country,” she added. “I’m supposed to become better, but after this gold medal, I feel I can finally play tennis a bit more relaxed.”

Zheng’s path to the gold medal, not just because of her semifinal victory against bronze medalist Swiatek, has hardly been straightforward. She also came through back-to-back encounters lasting more than three hours against Emma Navarro and Angelique Kerber earlier in the competition.

For Vekić, there are plenty of reasons to be positive. She has produced Croatia’s best-ever result at an Olympic tennis event, backing up her maiden grand slam semifinal appearance at Wimbledon last month.

In the process, the World No. 21 has defeated second seed Coco Gauff and one-time US Open champion Bianca Andreescu in Paris.

“Making the finals on clay, I did not expect that,” Vekić told reporters. “Every time I was winning in the first couple of rounds I was telling my coach I cannot believe the shots that I’m making, how well I’m playing.

“It’s a bit of a surpse but she was better today than me. All credit to her, she was playing really well and she deserved to win.”

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