China, it has often been said, is the sleeping giant of tennis and on Saturday night it will start to stir as the nation’s next superstar struts her stuff on the sport’s biggest stage.
Like her idol Li Na did 10 years ago, when she became the first Chinese person to lift a grand slam singles trophy at the 2014 Australian Open, Zheng Qinwen will have the eyes of a good share of the 1.4 billion people she represents so colourfully glued to their screens.
If they’re lucky, she’ll serenade them too. For if Zheng lifts the Daphne Akhurst trophy on Saturday night, she’s every chance of turning the presentation into karaoke night.
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Just as Li Na gave one of the most brilliant acceptance speeches you’ll ever hear after winning her slam, Zheng is capable of matching it with her equally sharp wit and her quirkiness. She also likes to sing, celebrating her home country title in Zhengzhou in October last year by belting out a Chinese tune for the crowd.
“Mostly I sing Chinese songs, slower songs,” she said. “I also do some Chinese rap. I maybe only sing three or four English songs. For the most part, it’s Chinese,” she said afterwards.
The 21-year-old is taking the tennis world by storm on and off the court. Last year she won two WTA tournaments, including a 500, to build on her 2022 WTA Newcomer of the Year gong.
She has enough charisma to become one of Asia’s biggest stars, with a look to match, complete with a Cindy Crawford-esque beauty spot. Already she’s been on the cover of GQ magazine and her profile is about to explode.
“Getting to know a new face on the tour, she was obviously the Newcomer of the Year (in 2022) but I think for the general public and Australia, particularly for the Asia-Pacific region to get someone like her through the tournament has been pretty massive for the tournament,” Casey Dellacqua points out on Wide World of Sports’ The Morning Serve.
“And I know there’s going to be billions and billions of eyes on that final tonight.”
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While singing is one of Zheng’s favourite pastimes, she also likes rollercoasters, which is lucky because to win her first grand slam final she’ll have to be prepared to strap in for the downs as well as the ups.
Ranked 15 in the world and bound for the top 10, Zheng is an excellent player with the potential to win multiple majors but she’s not yet a match for the best of Aryna Sabalenka.
Arguably the most powerful hitter in the women’s game, the Belarusian goes into the final on the back of one of the most dominant Australian Open performances in history. She’s yet to drop a set and has only lost 26 games all tournament, 10 of which were taken by Coco Gauff, the reigning US Open champion and one of the hottest players on tour.
In her run to the final Sabalenka has humbled two grand slam champions (Gauff and Barbora Krejcikova) and spanked the 16-year-old wonderkid Brenda Fruhvirtova.
Most, including Dellacqua and Sam Stosur consider the title Sabalenka’s for the taking, with Zheng arriving on Saturday night on the back of a charmed run in which the highest ranked opponent she’s had to beat was Alex de Minaur’s girlfriend, world No.54 Katie Boulter.
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A win for Zheng would be a monumental upset, but it’s not out of the question and that’s why we love sport.
“She’s spoken a lot about destiny and the fact that she’s here 10 years after Li Na won here 10 years ago here at the Australian Open and she seems like a very mature young woman to me,” Dellacqua told The Morning Serve.
“Even seeing her from the quarter-final stage through to the final, I feel like her composure on court, sometimes her tennis has been, not immature, but patchy at times. I think all in all her mindset, she’s mature. And I feel like if anything … she’s quite ready for this moment.”
Recently retired Australian champion Stosur had two chances in her career to lift a grand slam trophy, losing a French Open final she probably feels she should have won in 2010 before overcoming one of the sport’s most dominant figures on her home court in a sensational US Open final the following year.
Stosur sees Sabalenka, the defending champion, as a red hot favourite in career-best form but says one of the biggest things Zheng will have to overcome is the mental demons that accompany an occasion of this magnitude.
“The first time you’re in a grand slam final it is daunting, it is scary, but every time you’re in that position it is,” Stosur said.
“But if you’ve been in it more than once you know what it’s going to feel like and you’ve got your processes and things in place to combat anything that you might feel.
“Doing it for the first time, obviously players do win grand slams the first time they’re in grand slam finals but when you’re up against someone with the experience Sabalenka has I think she’s got something to play for today.”
Get beyond the mental opponent and Zheng will still have to play the match of her life.
“She needs to serve well. She’s got to be wary of her first serve percentage,” Stosur said.
“She wins a high percentage when it goes in but she’s not going to want to be hitting a lot of second serves against Sabalenka, I think that’s going to be a really important point for her to be able to hold serve and then hopefully she can relax on some of these return games, use her big groundstrokes, movement’s going to be really key against Sabalenka’s big groundstrokes.
“We’ve seen what she’s going to be capable of, now again, it’s a step up in competition so she’s going to have to handle the moment and the opponent.”
