China made history in the Olympic Games tennis competition, reaching the finals of the women’s singles and mixed doubles sections for the first time in the history of the Games at the Stade Roland Garros. Australian Open finalist Zheng Qinwen upset top seed Iga Swiatek 6-2, 7-5 in a historic win to book her place in the gold medal match of Olympic women’s singles final here.
Later in the evening, Wang Xinyu and Zhang Zhizhen made it a truly historic day for Chinese tennis when they came from behind to beat Demi Schuurs and Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands to reach the mixed doubles final on Thursday.
The Netherlands pair collected the first set 6-2 in 37 minutes, while Wang and Zhang won back the second set 6-4. In the decider, the Chinese duo extended high morale to lead the tie-breaker and scored 10 points first against their opponents’ four, reports Xinhua.
It is also the first time for Wang to team up with Zhang, whose original teammate was Zheng Qinwen, who decided to focus on singles in this Olympics.
Zheng’s victory marked China’s best result in the Olympic tennis women’s singles event after two-time Grand Slam winner Li Na reached the last four at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Both women arrived at Court Philippe-Chatrier after coming through tough three-set matches the day before. Swiatek, a four-time French Open winner, entered the match with a perfect 6-0 record against China’s number one.
Despite Zheng’s three-hour battle with German veteran Angelique Kerber on Wednesday, it was Swiatek who started the slower. The number one seed was made to work to hold her service in the opening game before Zheng broke at the second time of asking.
Before the changeover, both women broke each other with ease, reflecting shades of Zheng’s attritional win against Kerber, where both women broke each other numerous times throughout the match. In the following game, Zheng broke again before carrying her momentum through the set.
Starting the second set, Swiatek found herself down against Zheng, who fought back hard, breaking the Chinese twice consecutively to take a 4-0 lead in the set. But Zheng battled back, breaking Swiatek twice herself to win four games on the trot.
After a goliath battle over a deuce in which Zheng held her serve, the match entered the crucial period late in the set, with both women fighting hard to swing the match in their favor. It was Zheng who made the first major step towards victory, breaking Swiatek in the 11th game.