{"id":878738,"date":"2026-10-11T16:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T16:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878738\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T16:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T16:36:09","slug":"zheng-qinwen-makes-history-with-china-open-win-in-first-title-since-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/878738\/","title":{"rendered":"Zheng Qinwen makes history with China Open win in first title since 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zheng Qinwen<\/a> made history Sunday by becoming the first Chinese woman to win the China Open WTA 1000 title, defeating No. 4 seed Mirra Andreeva in straight sets.<\/p>\n

Andreeva, who had lost the only previous meeting between the pair, broke early to take a 2-0 lead before Zheng fought back to level the set. Zheng then saved three set points in the 10th game of a closely contested set before winning the final 11 points in a row to claim it 7-5.<\/p>\n

“If I remember those three set points that I had, the first set point, I think she served on the T, a great serve,” Andreeva told the media after the match. “I returned not so good. Plus-one. Then I put a lob. She finished with a smash. Not much I could do.<\/p>\n

“The second set point, there was a second serve. I could have taken more risk. I kind of went for it, but I still wanted it to be kind of safe. But I still thought it was a good return. A long point. Maybe I could have taken more risk, try to be more aggressive. After the third set point also she finished the point with a volley. Of course, if I look at that, if I try to bring that back, maybe I would do something different of course to try to change the outcome. Now it is what it is. The only thing I can do is to try to do something different on the next match that I have.”<\/p>\n

After the pair exchanged breaks early in the second set, Zheng earned a late break in the ninth game and held serve to complete the 7-5, 6-4 victory in 1 hour, 43 minutes.<\/p>\n

The winning moment \ud83e\udd29 History sealed with an ace from Zheng Qinwen! #ChinaOpen https:\/\/t.co\/U9tSRpv7KN<\/p>\n

\u2014 wta (@WTA) October 11, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Impressive stats behind Zheng’s historic run<\/p>\n

It was Zheng’s first WTA 1000 title and her sixth overall on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz. It was also her first title since winning in Tokyo in late 2024. The victory will see her return to the top 30 in the world rankings next week, having fallen to No. 160 midway through the season.<\/p>\n

The 24-year-old, currently ranked No. 54 in the world, became the first wildcard to win the event since the tournament’s reinauguration in 2004. She also became the lowest-ranked player to win the title during that span.<\/p>\n

After winning her first four matches at the tournament in three sets, Zheng won her final three matches in straight sets. The 78 games she dropped en route to the title were the most by a player winning a Tier I or WTA 1000 event since the format was introduced in 1990, surpassing the 66 dropped by Belinda Bencic in Toronto in 2015. Only Madison Keys, who dropped 87 games at the Australian Open in 2025, has dropped more games en route to winning a WTA-level title in the Open Era.<\/p>\n

The victory over Andreeva, who is projected to rise to No. 3 in the rankings Monday, was also Zheng’s 14th career win over a top-10 opponent and her third this season.<\/p>\n

Andreeva \u00a0third-youngest this century to reach the top 3<\/p>\n

Andreeva credited Zheng for delivering a strong performance in the final and expects more success for the former world No. 4 in the coming months. “I just think, of course, she’s a great server. I also think today I missed a lot of returns trying to go for it, trying to be more aggressive. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time I just felt like, I wanted to go for it but couldn’t really find I guess the margin, couldn’t really find the rhythm, as well. I will probably need to look at this match and just see why, try to improve and learn from that. For sure today she played great. She also mentioned, of course we all know, that she’s had a tough year. It’s also very nice to see her playing better and coming back. I think that she’s going to be raising her level even more soon.”<\/p>\n

Despite the loss, Andreeva will become the third-youngest player this century to reach the top three of the WTA rankings for the first time, behind only Maria Sharapova and Kim Clijsters.<\/p>\n

“I think overall of course it was a good tournament,” Andreeva said. “I mean, a lot of positives to take from these two weeks. Of course, I felt like today just wasn’t meant to be. I think after also talking with Conchita, I will be able to look onto this match maybe from a different perspective and see maybe some good things.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zheng Qinwen made history Sunday by becoming the first Chinese woman to win the China Open WTA 1000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428,1959],"class_list":["post-878738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}