Zheng Qinwen Reclaims Her Fire at the US Open
Zheng Qinwen dropped flat on her back, then sprang up with a roar and a clenched fist. On a modest outside court at Flushing Meadows, the 2024 Olympic champion looked and sounded like herself again.
This was not just a passage into the US Open third round. It felt like a reclamation.
Zheng, a former world No. 4, has spent most of 2025 fighting her body and her belief. Elbow surgery, a longer-than-expected recovery, and a season that never quite caught rhythm dragged her from the sport’s top tier down into the grind. She missed the Australian Open. The results that once came on command suddenly deserted her.
“Before the surgery, for me winning is like drinking water -- everything comes natural, everything comes fluent,” she said after a gritty 6-4, 2-6, 6-1 win over Yulia Putintseva. The contrast with the last few months could hardly be sharper. “After my surgery, I had some tough matches against the best players in the world (and) I'm close but I don't get them. I totally lost the dynamic of how to compete.”
That admission has hung over her season. The player who once bullied opponents with fearless first strikes had looked hesitant, unsure when to pull the trigger. Points she used to close out were slipping away. Scoreboards turned against her.
On Thursday, that pattern finally cracked.
Putintseva, one of the circuit’s great disruptors, dragged Zheng into long, awkward rallies and stole the second set with her usual mix of angles and irritation. The match could easily have spiralled. Instead, Zheng reset, raised her intensity, and ripped through the decider 6-1, the kind of authoritative finish that used to define her best days.
“Now after two, three months I really felt the first time in this tournament I find myself, I found my fire back during the competition,” she said. The word “fire” hung in the air. It matched the way she had stalked the baseline in that final set.
The route back to this point has been humbling. Her ranking slid so far that the Olympic gold medallist and former top-four player had to enter the US Open qualifying draw just to reach the main event. No protected status, no shortcuts. Just three tense matches to survive before the tournament even officially began.
“It takes a while for me to accept my ranking dropped to 125 and, OK, I need to actually play qualies,” she admitted. The honesty was raw, the pride still clearly stung. She did concede that the qualifying gauntlet might have done her some good, sharpening her instincts and forcing her to compete for every point again. But that doesn’t mean she enjoyed it.
Now, though, she is exactly where she believes she belongs: deep in the main draw, the stakes rising, the opponents getting bigger.
Next up is former Australian Open champion Madison Keys and, almost certainly, a return to one of the showpiece courts of Flushing Meadows. For Zheng, that stage is not a luxury. It is a reference point.
“I used to always play on the big court,” she said. “I need to fight to get everything back.”
The fight has clearly started. The question now is how far that rediscovered fire can carry her.
