Wild card Zheng Qinwen beat Elise Mertens 7-5, 6-2 on Saturday to become the first Chinese woman to reach the China Open final. She will face Mirra Andreeva, who beat Nikola Bartunkova 6-2, 6-2, in Sunday’s title match in Beijing.
Beijing, China: Chinese players had lost all seven of their previous semi-finals at the China Open. On Saturday, Zheng Qinwen ended that run, and she did it as a wild card ranked 54th, a long way down from the top-10 position she held at this time last year.
Zheng turns a tight first set
Zheng beat the 13th-seeded Mertens 7-5, 6-2 in one hour and 32 minutes. The opening set stayed close until Zheng found the extra gear, and the second was far more one-sided. She hit 32 winners against 16 unforced errors, and her 219 winners across the week are the most by any player at a single WTA event this season.
Andreeva rolls on
The other semi-final was shorter. Andreeva, the fourth seed, beat Bartunkova 6-2, 6-2 to reach her fifth final of the season. At 19, she has already won three titles this year, including her first major at Roland Garros, and she is chasing her third WTA 1000 title. She had reached the last four by edging Ekaterina Alexandrova in two tie-breaks, while Bartunkova beat Karolina Muchova in the other quarter-final.
A second meeting
Zheng and Andreeva have met once before, in the quarter-finals of the 2024 China Open, where Zheng won after losing the first set. The final is on Sunday, and Zheng is the first Chinese finalist in the tournament’s history, which dates back to 2004.
Semi-final results (China Open, Beijing, Saturday, 10 October 2026):
Qinwen Zheng (WC) d. [13] Elise Mertens 7-5, 6-2.
[4] Mirra Andreeva d. [26] Nikola Bartunkova 6-2, 6-2.
Final: Zheng v Andreeva, Sunday, 11 October.
