Wild card Zheng Qinwen beat Mirra Andreeva 7-5, 6-4 in Beijing on Sunday to become the first Chinese champion in the history of the China Open. The Olympic champion claimed her first WTA 1000 title, and her first trophy in two years, after an elbow injury derailed her season.
Beijing, China: Mirra Andreeva held three chances to take the opening set, and Zheng Qinwen refused every one of them. By the time her last serve flew past Andreeva’s backhand, the home favourite had turned the final around in one hour and 43 minutes and broken down in tears on court.
Three set points, one swing in momentum
Andreeva, the fourth seed and reigning French Open champion, broke early for a 2-0 lead, and Zheng broke back. At 5-4 Andreeva stood on the brink of the set with Zheng serving. Zheng saved all three set points to level at 5-5, then won 11 straight points to close the opener 7-5. The shift was sudden, and Andreeva never found a way to reverse it.
The decisive break
The second set traded early breaks before it tightened. In the ninth game Andreeva saved three break points, but Zheng still found the break she needed, then held serve to finish. She clinched on her first match point with an ace to Andreeva’s backhand side.
From injury layoff to a home title
Zheng arrived in Beijing as a wild card ranked 54th, a long way from the career-high No. 4 she reached last year. An elbow injury had derailed her season, and the Paris 2024 Olympic singles champion had not lifted a trophy since Tokyo in 2024.
The week demanded patience. Her first four matches all went to three sets, and she had spent 13 hours and 33 minutes on court before the final, more than any other player at a single tour event this season. She then won her last three matches in straight sets, beating sixth seed Elina Svitolina, Elise Mertens in the semi-final, which made her the first Chinese finalist in the tournament’s history, and finally Andreeva.
No Chinese player had won the title since the event began in 2004. Zheng is also the first wild card to win it in that span and its lowest-ranked champion, and she dropped 78 games across the week, the most by any Tier I or WTA 1000 champion since 1990, according to the WTA. It was her sixth WTA Tour title, and the WTA expects the result to carry her back into the top 30.
A rise that continues for Andreeva
Andreeva leaves Beijing with a defeat in her fifth final of the season, but her climb is intact. She is projected to rise to a career-high No. 3 in the rankings, which would make her the third-youngest player this century to reach the top three, behind Maria Sharapova and Kim Clijsters. The 19-year-old had reached the title match after edging Ekaterina Alexandrova in two tie-breaks in the quarter-finals, and she came in chasing a fourth title of the year.
It made for a Beijing fortnight with two very different champions. Novak Djokovic won the men’s title a few days earlier, but only Zheng gave the home crowd a first.
Final: Qinwen Zheng (CHN, WC) bt Mirra Andreeva (4) 7-5, 6-4. China Open (WTA 1000), Beijing, Sunday, 11 October 2026.
Title: Zheng’s first WTA 1000 crown and first title since Tokyo in 2024; first Chinese champion in the tournament’s history.
