Comeback queen stuns field with first WTA 1000 title after injury layoff

The most momentous moment of the Asian Swing this week was former world No 4 Qinwen Zheng’s defeat of defending champion Mira Andreeva to become the first Chinese woman to win the China Open.

This was beside world No 2 Alexander Zverev finally being guaranteed his year-end No 1 ranking care of No 3 Carlos Alcatraz’s unexpected third-round loss to unseeded Zizou Bergs in Shanghai.

Given Zheng missed the entire 2025 season with an elbow surgery and had plummeted to 121 in the rankings, this hard-fought 7-5 6-4 victory — also her first WTA 1000 win — made the feat all the more impressive.

“Finally, after all my many losses, I found my fire again!” Let us not forget, her so-called “fire” had won her both the Tokyo 2024 title and Olympic gold the same year, before her injury.

The fact she had beaten two top 10 players, Elina Svitolina and Andreeva, back-to-back and not dropped a set in her three final matches in Beijing illustrates the supreme effort required to catapult herself to No 23.

And not only her ranking is leaping exponentially — according to Forbes’ 2026 tennis earnings list, Zheng is ranked 7th, at $22.6m, with off-court endorsements contributing 97% of her income — far outweighing former world No 1s Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka.

France’s Arthur Fils destroyed two rackets — one after each set — in a straight-sets defeat to Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp

No brand abandoned her during her 2025 layoff, despite her dramatic drop in rankings; on the contrary they are heavily betting on China’s 25.18-million tennis fans and her global appeal as Olympic champion.

Meanwhile, players at the Shanghai Masters were also “on fire” — but for all the wrong reasons, as seeds toppled, tempers flared and a record number of rackets were pulverised, all on account of unusually fast and unpredictable court conditions, causing balls to skid and bounce erratically.

Khazak Alexander Bublik smashed his racket five times, kicked the bench and punched the court side drinks cooler for good measure, thereby cutting his hand, after losing a tiebreak to American Brandon Nakashima.

Bublik miraculously won the match despite himself and showed marginally more control when he subsequently lost to Zverev, again in a third set tiebreaker.

France’s Arthur Fils destroyed two rackets — one after each set — in a straight-sets defeat to Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp.

Francis Tiafoe repeatedly bashed his racket against the umpire’s chair after a soul-destroying three-set loss to Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina.

Terence Atmane literally hurled his racket in a blind rage into the stands during qualifying, which probably qualified as the worst of these meltdowns.

It is comforting to know that some racket sponsors are finally, if belatedly, taking independent action to mitigate this type of gratuitous destruction.

Yonnex has instituted a clause in players’ contracts permitting them to deduct a portion of earnings for every racket violently destroyed on court. Head has chosen to terminate contracts altogether, rather than issue incremental fines.

Alcaraz has been highly critical of the ATP continuing to add more events to an already jam-packed schedule in a manner that forces players to attend 40 weeks on tour, with mandatory obligations across Grand Slams and Masters

Fortunately, the biggest drawcards in Shanghai, Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, were, as always, beyond reproach in terms of behaving graciously in their defeats. Moreover, as the Tokyo and Beijing champions, they were the last to arrive at this event and had the least amount of time to adjust to new courts; thus, their losses were not entirely untoward.

Alcaraz has been highly critical of the ATP continuing to add more events to an already jam-packed schedule in a manner that forces players to attend 40 weeks on tour, with mandatory obligations across Grand Slams and Masters.

He is adamant this is becoming unsustainable and is planning to start missing tournaments, warning that if nothing changes in the immediate future, the serious injury tally will be off the charts.

The Spaniard is specifically unhappy with the new 12 day Masters format, insisting that the original one week formula was “better for tennis” and for potential breaks from it.

The new world No 1 Zverev has been a case in point, complaining of a sore ankle throughout this tournament and looking as if he were imminently about to withdraw midway in his match against Bublik, which the Khazak squandered several chances to win.

That said, the German has miraculously reached the quarterfinals with Alex De Minaur and Daniil Medvedev.

The least likely candidate to reach the last eight was 21-year-old Arthur Gea, who is playing in his first Masters 1000, having won his first Tour title in Los Angeles earlier this year and having reached the fourth round of the US Open as a lucky loser.

He aggressively dispatched world Nos 4 and 13, Ben Shelton and Jakub Mensik, in straight sets, en route to becoming the 10th player from any nation to reach a Masters 1000 quarter on debut. This in turn guarantees him a steep ranking rise to within the top 50, come Monday.

Tommy Paul too is the last American standing in the wake of Shelton and Tiafoe’s early exits. And if ever there was an opportunity for a player outside the top 10 to sneak in the back door and lift this suddenly unpredictable Shanghai trophy, this is it.