More than two years on from her greatest career peak, Zheng Qinwen is beginning to find form again.
The Chinese superstar, a former world No.4 now ranked outside the top 100, battled into the third round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in over a year on Thursday at the US Open.
Thanks to a three-set triumph over Yulia Putintseva, Zheng is now riding a five-match win streak after beginning the tournament in the qualifying rounds.
“Like now, after two, three months, I really felt for first time this tournament, I find myself,” Zheng said. “I found my fire back during the competition. It's like I can really scream ‘c’mon’ on court and then trying to fight against opponent.
"It takes a while for me to accept my ranking dropped ... and I'm like ‘OK, I need [to] actually playing qualies’. The qualies not easy.
“But I would say how more matches I play, it is true, this gives me more rhythm. But if I can choose, I still prefer to play main draw (smiling).”
Well and truly into the main draw now, Zheng lines up against Madison Keys – who is lucky to remain in the tournament after saving five match points in her own second-round win – to fight for a place in the second week.
The last time Zheng won five consecutive matches? That was at the Paris 2024 Olympics, where she won the singles gold medal and established herself as an icon in her homeland, as well as one of the world’s highest-paid female athletes.
Zheng’s golden campaign in Paris formed part of a 12-match winning streak and in the back half of 2024 she was one of the game’s form players. After Wimbledon she won 31 of 37 matches, claimed another title in Tokyo, reached finals in Wuhan and at the WTA Finals, and was a US Open quarterfinalist.
That all followed her run to the Australian Open 2024 final and by June 2025 – immediately after another major quarterfinal at Roland Garros – she hit world No.4.
Yet she’d been dealing with persistent pain in her elbow, which eventually required surgery just a month after hitting that career-high ranking.
It completely derailed her momentum.
She barely played for the rest of 2025, missed AO 2026 and found wins hard to come by when she returned.
"I totally lost the dynamic for how to compete as an athlete,” she revealed. “Because I'd been every day living life – OK [I was] training – but without any pressure, without any adrenalin. It's like I didn't find it for a while.”
When she lost 6-4 6-0 to Maja Chwalinska in the first round at Roland Garros, she plummeted outside the top 100, falling as low as No.160.
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Having reached that nadir, there have been positive signs since, such as her first WTA quarterfinal in more than a year in Athens.
Just last week, in an interview for Jessica Schiffer's Hard Court Substack, she declared: “The body right now is finally all good. I play without pain. That’s what I’ve been searching for for the last two years, and thank God that finally I’m able to do that.”
That set the stage for her qualifying campaign in New York, where she completed a 6-4 3-6 6-0 win over Elena Pridankina to cement her place in the main draw.
It was her first time competing in Slam qualifying since AO 2022 – that was also the last time she found herself outside the top 100 – and she fell to the ground, putting her hands to her head in disbelief as she drank in the support of fans on Stadium 17.
But she wasn’t done, returning to the same court and notching a three-set win over rising star Kristina Liutova. Victory over Putintseva in her next match means Zheng has never fallen before the third round in New York.
"It was my first Grand Slam main-draw win [against Liutova] actually in more than a year. That means a lot to me,” said Zheng, who has improved to world No.94 in the WTA live rankings.
"It's always special for me to come back here in New York because it's the first time I made quarterfinal, is here in the US Open.
“I just love to play here, love the passion that everybody brings on the stadium for playing tennis.”
We’ll see if she can keep the momentum going on Saturday.