Five years ago at the US Open, Emma Raducanu, then ranked 150th in the world, pulled off a miracle and became the first qualifier in tennis history to win a Grand Slam title.
In June this year, Maja Chwalinska, ranked 114th, was one victory away from replicating that feat as she stormed to the French Open final as a qualifier. She ultimately lost the title match to Mirra Andreeva.
The player Chwalinska beat in the first round of her dream run in Paris was Zheng Qinwen, the reigning Olympic champion and former world No 4
Zheng broke down in tears during her post-match press conference that day at Roland Garros. She had won just seven matches in the six events she had contested since returning to the tour in February. She was searching for a spark to ignite the competitive fire within her that had been missing throughout her comeback thus far.
Her ranking took a serious dive after her defeat to Chwalinska, plummeting to 160 in the world during the grass grass-court season
“That loss is one of the toughest for me to accept,” Zheng reflected on Monday after she punched her ticket to the US Open quarter-finals.
“But I think those losses may be necessary for me to understand that I need to stay humble. I need to continue work hard, to come back to my spot, because I felt that in sport, there's no gift.
“If you stop working hard, the result shows everything. So I need to, in that moment, to heal myself for quite a long time, little by little, find myself.
“Also, I was not winning still after that. I just needed to accept it, keep working hard, and let's see when is my moment when I can come back again.
“But I always have the confidence in myself that I will be there. It was just a matter of when.”
The 'when' took a bit of time to come. Zheng lost her opener at Wimbledon and went 2-3 on hard courts in the build-up to the US Open. After she lost her qualifying first round in Canada, she had a heart-to-heart with her coach, Pere Riba,, who suggested she do a solid training block before New York to find her form.
Zheng said it took her five seconds to agree. She went to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, where she ate, slept and breathed tennis.
“I remember one day that we even finished training at 8.30 in the evening when I started, like, 8.00 in the morning,” Zheng recalled.
“It was really tough, but this is how sport shows. If you don't work hard, you don't have it. So I'm really happy about how we make together the work, and then at the end, the effort pays off.”
The effort has indeed paid off.
With her ranking still low at 121, she had to accept that she couldn’t gain direct entry into the US Open main draw and instead had to compete in the qualifying rounds.
For a player who was ranked No 5 in the world just 14 months earlier, going through qualifiers was a tough pill to swallow. But Zheng secured her place in the main draw with three victories and then claimed four more to become the first qualifier since Raducanu to reach the US Open quarter-finals.
Zheng beat two Grand Slam champions, Madison Keys and Iga Swiatek, in her previous two rounds and remarkably battled back from a 0-5 deficit in each of those matches.
She rallied from 0-5 down in the deciding set against Keys to win 1-6, 7-6, 7-5 and erased a 0-5 score in the opening set against Swiatek to beat the six-time major winner 7-5, 6-3 in Round 4 on Wednesday.
Zheng was 1-7 head-to-head against Swiatek going into that match.
She is now three wins away from achieving what Chwalinska, her Roland Garros conqueror, fell just short of in Paris three months ago. She also has a chance to join Raducanu as one of only two players in tennis history to win a Grand Slam as a qualifier.
“I come from the qualie this time, so I say to myself, ‘The reality is you are just 125 [121 in the world]. 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’,” she said of her approach to this US Open.
Zheng, who took gold at the Paris Olympics and was a finalist at the Australian Open in 2024, was laser-focused against Swiatek despite her slow start. She was so in the zone as she closed the gap in the opening set that she forgot the scoreline altogether.
She was hitting freely against the former World No 1 and made the necessary adjustments, striking the ball flatter than usual to counter Swiatek’s topspin and complete the upset.
“I guess to come back from 0-5 yesterday was not lucky, that’s all I can say,” said Zheng, with a laugh, in her on-court interview.
In another statement of intent, Zheng decided to hit the practice court after beating Swiatek, with footage of Zheng working on her serve shown on the US Open feed shortly after her fourth-round victory.
Zheng is one of the sport’s foremost superstars, and her return to the big stage is a huge value addition for the tour. In the most recent Forbes list of highest-earning tennis players, Zheng is listed at No 7, with $22 million earned off court, trailing only Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Serena Williams, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Novak Djokovic.
She made history as Asia’s first tennis player to win an Olympic gold medal in singles and doesn't shy away from the spotlight; in fact, she loves it.
Whether she’s celebrating a title victory by grabbing the microphone to sing karaoke during the trophy ceremony, or shining on the cover of Vogue while repping Dior, Zheng has an X-factor that perfectly complements her tennis talent.
Standing between her and a possible Raducanu-like triumph is reigning Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina, who will secure her place as the world No 1 for the first time in her career if she beats Zheng and reaches the US Open semi-finals.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for both, which means that Wednesday’s quarter-final clash is not to be missed.
Rybakina leads the head-to-head 4-1, but their last three showdowns, including two this year, were all tough three-setters.
With history on the line, this match-up promises to be a scorcher.
