Zheng Qinwen (Mandarin pronunciation: ; born 8 October 2002) is a Chinese professional tennis player.
She has a career-high singles ranking of world No. 7 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), achieved on 29 January 2024.
Zheng has won two WTA Tour, one WTA Challenger and eight ITF singles titles, and was named the 2022 WTA Newcomer of the Year.
She contested a major final at the 2024 Australian Open.
Zheng was born in Shiyan, Hubei.
Until the age of three, she spent time in her maternal grandmother's home in Chengdu, Sichuan, where her mother originated.
Zheng began playing tennis at age seven.
Two months later, eight-year-old Zheng left her family in Shiyan to train in Wuhan.
2019
About three years later, she moved to Beijing to train with Carlos Rodriguez, the former coach of Zheng's idol Li Na, and then moved to Barcelona with her mother in 2019.
She began working with coach Pere Riba in 2021.
In January 2021, Zheng won the Tennis Future Hamburg, Germany where she defeated Linda Fruhvirtová in the final of the $25k event, held at the venue of the Hamburger Tennis-Verband.
On 20 June 2021, she won the final of the $60k Macha Lake Open in Staré Splavy, defeating Aleksandra Krunić in two sets.
Zheng made her WTA Tour debut at the Palermo Ladies Open, where she also recorded her first win defeating second seed Liudmila Samsonova in the first round.
At the Melbourne Summer Set 1, Zheng reached her first WTA Tour semifinal, beating Mai Hontama, former No. 2 Vera Zvonareva, and Ana Konjuh, respectively.
She lost her semifinal match to second seed Simona Halep, in straight sets.
A week after the Melbourne Summer Set, Zheng qualified for her first major event, at the Australian Open where she defeated Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the first round.
In the second, she lost to fifth seed Maria Sakkari, in straight sets.
As a result, she reached the top 100 at world No. 80, on 31 January 2022.
At the French Open, Zheng defeated Maryna Zanevska on her debut at that major.
Next, she beat former French Open champion and 19th seed, Simona Halep, her first top-20 win, to move to the third round of a major for the first time in her career.
She moved into the fourth round after Alizé Cornet's retirement.
On 30 May 2022, she lost to top seed and world No. 1, Iga Świątek of Poland, in the fourth round, referring to menstrual cramps as a contributing factor.
Zheng was still happy about her performance and glad that she was able to play against the world's number one.
As a result, she moved to a new career-high of No. 54, on 6 June 2022, and reached the top 50, at world No. 46, a week later when she won her first WTA 125 title at the Open Internacional de Valencia defeating compatriot Wang Xiyu.
She debuted at Wimbledon and defeated Sloane Stephens in the first round.
She won her second match at this major against Greet Minnen, before falling to the eventual champion, Elena Rybakina, in the third round.
In August, Zheng defeated fifth seed Ons Jabeur by retirement in the second round for her first top-10 win, and defeated Bianca Andreescu in the third round of the Canadian Open to enter the first WTA 1,000 quarterfinal of her career, losing to Karolína Plíšková in three sets.
At the US Open, Zheng defeated Jeļena Ostapenko in the first round and Anastasia Potapova in the second round.
She was beaten in the third round by Jule Niemeier, in straight sets.
At the Pan Pacific Open in Japan, Zheng became the first Chinese teenager to ever reach a WTA Tour final which she lost to Liudmila Samsonova.
Her win over top seed Paula Badosa in the second round was her first completed top-10 win and second overall (after Jabeur in Toronto).
She also became the second teenager to make a WTA 500-level or higher final in the season, after Coco Gauff.
As a result, she reached the top 30 at world No. 28, on 26 September 2022, becoming the first Chinese teenager to do so.
For her breakthrough season, Zheng was named WTA Newcomer of the Year.
Zheng began the season with a win over former world No. 2 player, Anett Kontaveit, in the first round of the Adelaide International, saving match points in the third set to triumph in a final set tiebreak.
She lost to Victoria Azarenka in the second round, and also reached the second round at the Australian Open.
On her debut at the Italian Open, she defeated Alizé Cornet, Anna Bondár, and compatriot Wang Xiyu to reach the quarterfinals of a WTA 1000 tournament for the second time in her career, and her first tour-level quarterfinal on clay.
As a result, she reached No. 19 in the WTA rankings, becoming the fifth Chinese player to break into the top 20 – the first four in order of career-high ranking were Li Na (No. 2), Wang Qiang (12), Peng Shuai (14) and Zheng Jie (15).
At the French Open, as the 19th seed, she beat Tamara Zidanšek in the first round, before losing to Yulia Putintseva in the second.
After the French Open, Zheng split from coach Pere Riba and began working with Naomi Osaka's longtime coach Wim Fissette.
