Zheng Qinwen admits her top ten goal took her out of the moment
Rising Chinese star Zheng Qinwen admitted that her season goal of reaching the top ten proved a distraction from her game.
Zheng won her maiden WTA Tour title in Zhengzhou and conceded that her delight was mixed with relief.
The win’s significance was underlined by the crowd’s response to a breakthrough win for their own darling.
Zheng’s season has been a mixed bag, but she remains the Chinese No 1, having hovered just outside the top 20 for most of this term.
She feels that she didn’t use her energy efficiently and struggled to keep herself calm as she felt results going against her.
“I remember at the beginning of the year, I said I wanted to make the top 10 by the end of the year, and I couldn’t make it,” Zheng said in her winner’s press conference.
“I was really believing at that moment that I could have everything faster.
“But I wanted too much, and I was too much focused on the results, so I could not keep myself calm, focus on the process, focus on the present, I made a lot of mistakes.”
Against that backdrop, she did very well indeed to remain calm as she battled through the three-set marathon against Barbora Krejcikova.
“We are in Zhengzhou, in China, finally, I have a chance to play in my country,” Zheng explained.
“I’ve got a lot of pressure, you can see in the match, in the first set I was leading 2-0 in the end, I lost 6 games in a row. There were a lot of ups and downs, but the important thing is to win the match, whatever happens, and right now, I’m just feeling super happy and want to enjoy the time with my team.
“When I was on the court finishing the last point I was feeling super happy and all the crowd was shouting for me, they were fully supporting me, in that moment the feeling was unexplainable.
“That was such a special experience to win my first WTA 500 title in China and especially in Zhengzhou.”
She credits staying in the moment for keeping her on track and fighting for her big breakthrough win.
“I said to myself… I know you really want to win but let’s just focus on the present, don’t think about the result, just play point by point try to fight, try to make the ball alive to try to find the way to win the rally, don’t be too rushed and that’s what I said to myself, just be in the present, don’t think about the result,” said Zheng.
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