Qinwen Zheng's behavior on the court sometimes divides opinion, but she was undoubtedly in the wrong in an incident during the 2024 Wuhan Open final.
No one can doubt the quality of Zheng's game. The 22-year-old's development throughout 2024 has been among the most impressive on the WTA Tour after achieving many memorable results.
Zheng had a surprising run to the final of the Australian Open at the start of the year. After beating Dayana Yastremska in the semifinal, she lost to Aryna Sabalenka, who retained her title in Melbourne.
After a less successful few months afterward, Zheng played spectacular tennis to win Olympic gold in the women's singles at Roland-Garros, including one of the season's biggest upsets against four-time French Open champion Iga Swiatek.
Zheng also managed the expectations of playing on home soil well during the two WTA-1000 tournaments in China. She reached the semifinal of the China Open in Beijing before falling to Sabalenka in the final of the Wuhan Open.
Those results give Zheng a great chance of qualifying for the year-end WTA Finals. Four more players booked their spots during the Wuhan Open, but the Olympic gold medalist is in pole position to claim the final spot.
However, some people also criticize Zheng for her behavior. She usually does not congratulate her opponent at the net during post-match handshakes after defeats, and she did not look Sabalenka in the eye after losing the final in Wuhan.
Zheng was also involved in a controversial incident in her Wuhan Open match against Leylah Fernandez, clashing with the Canadian's father. The 22-year-old claimed he was distracting her, something Fernandez's father denied.
It was hard to gauge who was right in that incident. By contrast, Zheng's actions towards a line judge in the final in Wuhan were entirely unjustified, with the man involved being berated without any good reason.
As the video below shows, Sabalenka and Zheng played an epic point at 4-2, 30-15 in the Belarusian's favor. It ended with Sabalenka hitting a delightful lob that the home favorite could not retrieve.
Despite the line judge being nowhere close to her while she tried to get the lob back into play, Zheng turned and shouted in the man's face. To his credit, the line judge did not react and remained calm.
The Australian Open runner-up then pleaded her case to the umpire, who correctly answered that the line judge was in the correct position throughout the point and could not be blamed for the 22-year-old's losing the point.
Some of the other significant tournaments on the ATP and WTA Tours have automatic line-calling systems. That makes line judges unnecessary, and decision-makers feel the automatic system reduces the number of errors, presenting a worthwhile trade-off.
However, players' treatment of line judges and umpires is sometimes the problem rather than the calls made. Zheng's actions to the line judge simply doing his job were unacceptable, and hopefully, she apologized to him afterward for that behavior.
0 Comments