Zheng Qinwen's "Post-Olympic" Life: A tennis craze swept his hometown Hubei, and his father will start tennis training｜Cover Deep Mirror
2024-08-16
한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina
Cover News reporter Shi Wei
On August 16, Zheng Qinwen played his first match after winning the Olympic title at the Cincinnati Masters. After leading his opponent 6:1 and 5:4 (15:0) in the first two sets, the match was cancelled due to rain and the next day. Previously, four other Chinese players were eliminated in the first round, and men's singles player Zhang Zhizhen was eliminated in the second round. Zheng Qinwen became the only Chinese player to continue to challenge the latest world rankings.
Screenshot of the Women's Tennis Association's Weibo
Last year, Zheng Qinwen defeated Grand Slam champion Venus Williams in this event and entered the top 16. This time, she returned with the title of Paris Olympic Women's Singles Champion. The media surrounded this Olympic Women's Singles "new champion" and asked many questions about winning the Paris title.
Zheng Qinwen said that the Olympic journey made her feel a great transformation. She defeated stronger opponents and realized that a strong mentality can indeed turn around many situations. However, she does not want to be overly immersed in this victory. "I must forget it and start again."
In addition to attracting international attention, Zheng Qinwen has also set off a tennis craze in China. In her hometown of Hubei, the number of tennis participants has doubled, the enthusiasm of mass tennis participants is high, related e-commerce products have exploded, and many counties and cities are building more tennis venues to cope with it; her father Zheng Jianping also announced that he will carry out tennis training to provide support for tennis seedlings from families with insufficient financial resources.
Zheng Qinwen won the championship in Paris (Xinhua News Agency)
Zheng Qinwen feels "transformed" after winning the Olympic gold medal
The only seedling continues to impact the latest world rankings
After winning the Olympic gold medal, Zheng Qinwen, as the No. 7 seed in the Cincinnati tournament, started directly from the round of 32. Her opponent was the Polish player Frech, who was ranked 48th in the world.
Zheng Qinwen revealed in a pre-match interview that he had a fever after leaving Paris and arriving in the United States to prepare for the competition. "After being sick, I completely lost the joy of the Olympics. My body is not 100%, but I am 100% ready mentally."
Zheng Qinwen said that the Olympic gold medal brought her great encouragement. The Olympic journey made her feel a great transformation. She realized that her physical strength could reach this level and that a strong mentality could indeed turn many situations around. "But I don't want to be too immersed in this victory. If I want to play well in the next game, I must forget it and start again."
Fans found that Zheng Qinwen has been showing such calmness since she won the championship in Paris. She once summarized her experience of winning the championship, saying that she learned lessons from the French Open on the Olympic clay court, played calmer and more patiently than usual, and never thought of beating the opponent to death with one shot. It was her patience and calmness that allowed her to turn the tide in the difficult moments of the game.
Zheng Qinwen praised Li Na as the first Asian player who made history. She herself was the first Asian player to win the Olympic championship, which also made history, but Li Na's Grand Slam is also one of her dreams. "Every era has its own heroes, and Li Na is the leader of that era. Where I can go depends on my own efforts. I hope I can also become a leader of the era."
According to the schedule, after the Cincinnati Open, the last Grand Slam of the year, the US Open, will start on August 26. So far, Zheng Qinwen has won the runner-up in the Australian Open and entered the third round of the French Open in the first three Grand Slam events of this year, but was eliminated in the first round of Wimbledon.
Two days ago, Wang Xinyu, Yuan Yue, Zhang Shuai and Wang Yafan were eliminated in the first round. Zhang Zhizhen, who had just won the silver medal in the mixed doubles with Wang Xinyu at the Paris Olympics, won his first match in Cincinnati, but was eliminated in the second round on the 16th.
The rankings of the players change at any time according to the progress of the competition. After his first victory, Zhang Zhizhen's world ranking rose from 44th to 41st. His previous highest ranking was 31st. Wang Xinyu and Yuan Yue's world rankings rose by 2 places after the game, reaching 37th and 38th respectively. Their previous highest rankings were 32nd and 36th respectively.
Zheng Qinwen became "the only hope of the whole village" and continued to compete in subsequent competitions to impact the latest world rankings.
Currently, Zheng Qinwen is still ranked 7th in the world. She has repeatedly staged reversals with her "big heart", and she has become more and more calm after winning the Paris Championship. Fans are looking forward to her continuing to create surprises in the few remaining events this year.
Li Na and Zheng Qinwen's "10-year inheritance" may be staged again
Zheng Qinwen's father will start tennis training
In 2014, Li Na won the Australian Open women's singles final, becoming the first Asian player to win the Australian Open singles title. At that time, Li Na lifted the trophy on the court, and 12-year-old Zheng Qinwen and her teammates stood in front of the TV and cheered and jumped. This photo has been widely circulated to this day. Zheng Qinwen has also said in interviews many times that it was Li Na who planted the seeds of tennis in her heart.
In January 2024, 10 years after the photo was taken, Zheng Qinwen won the runner-up in the Australian Open. During the competition, Li Na visited Zheng Qinwen, and the two embraced each other warmly, which moved thousands of fans. The experience of the two No. 1 Asian tennis players is regarded by fans as a good story of "10 years of inheritance".
On the night of the Paris final, Zheng Qinwen’s hometown held a viewing event at the Hubei Olympic Sports Center, and this "inheritance" began again.
At the match site, more than 20 young players from Wuhan and Xianning came to watch the game. Some of them have already started professional training and started to win places in youth competitions, while others are still at the amateur stage and have only recently started playing tennis with their parents and teachers.
The final lasted nearly two hours. The children sometimes jumped and cheered when Zheng Qinwen scored, and slapped the tables and chairs when he lost points. Some children were still confused about whether their shots were good or bad, and they were happy and sad with their friends. Some children dozed off, but were suddenly pulled up by the arms of excited classmates next to them.
The 10-year-old Huang Hongming just won his first championship in his age group. He shyly told the Cover News reporter that he is the best among his friends and "I want to be better than Zheng Qinwen and win the world championship in the future."
This statement is just like the "Flying Fish" Pan Zhanle who broke the world record and won three medals in this Olympics. In 2014, the 10-year-old Pan Zhanle won 10 medals at the Zhejiang Provincial Games. In an interview with a TV station, he once boasted that "being faster than Sun Yang is enough". During the Paris Olympics, this interview went viral on the Internet, and Sun Yang responded specifically, saying "this is a kind of inheritance."
When Zheng Qinwen dropped his racket in Paris and raised his arms to the sky in cheers, the children at the Hubei Olympic Sports Center, whether they wanted to win the championship or were ignorant of the good or bad shots, jumped for joy in front of the screen just like Zheng Qinwen did 10 years ago. There was a gleam in their eyes, and the seeds were sprouting.
On the second day after winning the championship, Zheng Qinwen's hometown community in Shiyan City and the community where she lives in Wuhan both hung congratulatory banners. Zheng Jianping, who has accompanied Zheng Qinwen in her tennis training since she was young, is much more assured about Zheng Qinwen's future competitions. He told the Cover News reporter that only when more good seedlings join the tennis career can more outstanding players emerge. "Next, I will focus on tennis training, discovering good seedlings, and training good players. Some good seedlings have poor family conditions and their development is limited, so we have to provide help."
Tennis fever sweeps Hubei
Many counties and cities increase tennis construction to welcome the "Zheng Qinwen effect"
According to multiple media reports, after Zheng Qinwen won the Paris Championship, tennis-related industries have experienced a boom. The transaction volume of related products on e-commerce platforms has skyrocketed, the number of inquiries and registrations for training institutions has skyrocketed, the public's enthusiasm for participating in tennis has increased, and tennis venues have been fully booked.
A tennis club in Xianning has recruited more coaches and support staff and adjusted classes to cope with the surge in the number of students due to the surge in the number of applicants. A staff member of the club said: "Xianning's tennis strength and popular base are not among the top in Hubei Province. The chain reaction in places like Wuhan, Jingzhou, Yichang and Shiyan is even stronger."
Wang Rui, deputy director of the Shiyan Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, introduced that since Zheng Qinwen won the Australian Open runner-up in January, the number of tennis participants in tennis training institutions and amateur sports schools has doubled compared with the same period last year; after winning the Olympic gold medal, the number of participants has peaked again.
Wang Rui introduced that Li Na's sudden emergence and creation of history and Zheng Qinwen's "high-level" international competitions have continuously set off a climax of tennis participation in Hubei Province. In this context, in addition to Zheng Qinwen, Shiyan City has also cultivated Fu Xiaochen, the bronze medalist of the Hangzhou Asian Games soft tennis, Huang Jilong, the champion of the National Youth Championship, and 14-year-old twins Yu Kexin and Yu Kewei, who won one silver and two bronze medals in the Provincial Games.
"To fully cope with the tennis craze that has emerged, Shiyan City upgraded the tennis court where Zheng Qinwen used to train into a tennis stadium. Maojian District, where she was born, is building an international tennis service center, and other community courts and campus courts are also increasing."
Jingshan City in Hubei Province, with a population of 600,000, is known as the "hometown of tennis". There are 100,000 tennis enthusiasts here, with more than 380 high-standard tennis courts. In 2018, the Hubei Tennis School was established here. As of March this year, the school's students have won 48 gold medals, 37 silver medals, and 40 bronze medals in national tennis competitions. In April this year, the Hubei Tennis School became one of the eight reserve talent training cooperation units of the Chinese Tennis Association. At present, Jingshan has sent 7 people to the Hubei Provincial Team and 4 people to the National Junior Tennis Reserve Team.
The number of public participation is the reservoir of competitive sports. Last year, Jingshan held the first "Village Net" tennis competition, attracting more than 3,000 participants from all over the country. Some people in the local team of Jingshan were still raising cattle and selling vegetables in the morning, and they went to the tennis court to swing their rackets in the afternoon.
Zheng Qinwen won first place in a competition in Jingshan, Hubei at the age of 10 (Photo provided by the interviewee)
Gao Bao, deputy director of the Jingshan Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, introduced that Zheng Qinwen won the first place in the Hubei Youth Tennis Championships in Jingshan when she was 10 years old. The news that she won the runner-up in the Australian Open and the Olympic champion caused a sensation across the country. "This year we are going to upgrade Hubei's 'Village Net' to China's 'Village Net' to attract more tennis enthusiasts to participate. At the same time, Jingshan will host more than 40 events this year, including 2 international events and 13 national events, focusing on both mass tennis and professional tennis events."
