“By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
Call it “The Great Escape” of Olympic tennis.
Qinwen Zheng won an historic first-ever singles gold medal for China at the tennis competition the Paris Olympic Games, but it would not have been achieved had she not wrestled herself out of the jaws of defeat – twice!
In the third round against Emma Navarro of the United States, played on Court 7 at Roland Garros, Zheng had to save a match point before surviving 6-7(7),7-6(4), 6-1. Navarro served for the match TWICE but was not able to close out the win. Before Navarro served for the match for the first time, she had her match point leading 5-3 in the second set with Zheng serving at ad-out. Zheng saved the match point with a strong serve out wide the Navarro could barely get her racquet on, the ball ricocheting off her frame and into the crowd on the sidelines. Zheng, who also trailed 0-30 that game, won the following two points to fight back to draw to 5-4, forcing Navarro to serve for the match. Navarro, however, was only able to win one point while first serving for the match as Zheng broke to tie the second set at 5-5. At 5-5, Zheng, however, faltered and hit a double fault down 15-40 allowing Navarro another chance to serve out the match. Navarro, however, was broken at love to then force the second set tiebreaker that Zheng persisted in and won 7-4. The first two sets took two hours and 28 minutes and Zheng was the stronger player physically and won the final set 6-1 with the total match time being three hours, 12 minutes.
With the compact schedule of the Olympics , Zheng had to turn around the next day in the quarterfinals to play on Philippe Chatrier Stadium against 2016 Olympic silver medalist Angie Kerber, playing her final career tournament. Kerber led 4-1 in the third set before Zheng again escaped to win by a tight of 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (6) scoreline in three hours and four minutes. That’s Zheng wining two three-hour matches on consecutive days! Zheng had to serve to stay in the match twice in the final set against Kerber, at 4-5 and 5-6 (winning both service games at 15) and was two points from losing at 6-6 in the final-set tiebreaker.
After these two arduous matches, Zheng then had to face the prospect of playing four-time Roland Garros champion and world No. 1 Iga Swiatek in the semifinals. However, her consistency, mixed with nerves and poor play from Swiatek gave the Zheng the 6-2, 7-5 victory. Zheng, ranked No. 7 in the world, was then the favorite in the final against No. 21-ranked Donna Vekic in the final and won the gold in relatively routine fashion 6-2, 6-3.
For all of this struggle to win Olympic gold, it is ironic that Zheng’s Olympic effort began with a 6-0, 6-0 whitewash of Sara Errani in the first round, only the sixth white-wash match ever in Olympic women’s singles history.
