Zheng Qinwen disagrees with Iga Swiatek’s criticism of WTA and schedule with strong message

Ewan West 30 Sep 2025 10:25 AM

Iga Swiatek with Zheng Qinwen inset

Zheng Qinwen sent a strong message as she responded to Iga Swiatek’s statements about the tennis calendar and the WTA Tour’s controversial mandatory tournament rule.

Swiatek has not held back from sharing her views on the demands of the tennis tour during the China Open, which has seen a host of players forced to retire from matches with physical issues.

The world No 2 branded the schedule “crazy” and criticised the WTA Tour’s policy that requires stars to play a minimum of six WTA 500 events in a season, as well as all 10 WTA 1000 events, the four majors, and the WTA Finals for the eight qualifiers.

“Maybe I will have to choose some tournaments and skip them, even though they are mandatory,” the six-time Grand Slam champion said after her third round win in Beijing.

“Yeah, like WTA with all these mandatory rules, they made this pretty crazy for us. I don’t think any top player will actually be able to achieve this, for example, playing the six 500 tournaments. It’s just impossible to squeeze it in the schedule.

“But yeah, I think we have to be smart about it, not really, unfortunately, care about the rules and just think what’s healthy for us. Yeah, it’s tough.”

Zheng, the world No 9, returned to action in Beijing having not competed since Wimbledon after undergoing elbow surgery. The Chinese star downed Emiliana Arango in her opening match before retiring when trailing Linda Noskova 0-3 in the third set of her second match.

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Zheng was asked about the high number of retirements at the China Open and Swiatek’s comments about the WTA mandatory event requirements.

“I mean, this is part of the games. As a professional player, I mean, this is what it is because we have to play that many tournament because there is in the calendar,” said the 22-year-old in her press conference.

“I think my situation’s different than them. I coming from surgery, which is really rush decision for me to playing here.

“But also is the right decision for me because I want to see where my body is right now. Okay, now I know to compete third set, the amount of hitting the balls is too much for me.

“But I don’t think for professional player the calendar is too much because the strongest players survive, and that’s the rules in my head.”

On her decision to retire against Zheng, Noskova explained: “Yeah, because keep playing by a lot of repetition, I start to feel a bit more, which is normal.

“I already expect that. So I decided when the pain’s going higher, for don’t damage the area, I should stop.

“I’ve been keep thinking on in the second set, so I keep pushing, pushing, until I say, like, ‘Okay, that’s it’.”