Zheng shocks No.1 Swiatek to reach Olympic gold-medal final; faces Vekic

No.6 seed Zheng Qinwen of China pulled off a seismic upset at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Thursday, dethroning World No.1 Iga Swiatek of Poland 6-2, 7-5 to reach the gold-medal final. Zheng will face Wimbledon semifinalist Donna Vekic of Croatia for the gold medal on Saturday. 

Olympics: Scores | Draws | Order of Play

With a powerful and impactful performance, Zheng blasted past the top seed after 1 hour and 51 minutes of play on Court Philippe Chatrier at Roland Garros, the site of many of Swiatek's career-best moments.

The 21-year-old Zheng earned her first professional win over Swiatek in their seven tour-level meetings. Relatedly, this is Zheng's first victory over any reigning World No.1 player.

Top seed goes down: Five-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek came into these Olympics as the gold-medal favorite, and not only because of her world ranking.

Heading into Thursday's semifinal, Swiatek had won her last 20 clay-court matches and had a 38-2 career win-loss record at Roland Garros, the site of these Games. On these very grounds, Swiatek had won four French Open titles over the past five years.

But this year's Australian Open runner-up Zheng had challenged Swiatek in the past, even though she had never defeated Swiatek in six prior attempts.

Zheng had pushed Swiatek into three sets on half of those occasions, and she was the only player to take a set off Swiatek during the Pole's run to the 2022 French Open title.

Heroic run continues: On Thursday, Zheng was up to the task all the way through, extending her relentless run through the XXXIII Olympiad.

Photos: Zheng Qinwen's Parisian epics and all of 2024's three-hour matches

In the past two days, Zheng had won consecutive three-hour matches, over Emma Navarro (saving a match point) and Angelique Kerber (sending the former World No.1 into retirement) respectively.

Despite having those grueling affairs in her recent history, Zheng was able to hold off Swiatek in straight sets on Thursday, breaking the Pole's serve six times to advance.

All told, Zheng is currently on a 10-match clay-court winning streak of her own. Just over a week ago, the Chinese No.1 went to Palermo and successfully defended her title at that WTA 250 event to kick off this run of winning form on the surface.

For her efforts, Swiatek still has a chance to exit Paris with hardware. The world's top-ranked player will participate in the bronze-medal final later this week.

Match moments: Zheng found the deepest sections of the court in Thursday's first set, slamming a forehand winner to lead 4-2. Zheng kept up the pressure, reeling off four games in a row to take the one-set lead. Swiatek had 16 unforced errors to Zheng’s six in the opener.

Swiatek used her heavy forehand to lead 4-0 in the second set, and the top seed seemed prepared to level proceedings. But Zheng mixed outrageous drop shot winners into her power game as she fought all the way back to 4-4.

Swiatek never could wrest control from Zheng, and the Chinese player earned the pivotal break for 6-5 by forcing an error with a deep backhand. In the last game, Zheng erased a break point with another winning drop shot, and she held on from there for a famous upset.

Vekic continues her summer surge in Paris: Vekic bounced back from her match-point saving effort against Marta Kostyuk in the quarterfinals to cruise past No.67 Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6-4, 6-0 in the second semifinal. 

Like Zheng, Vekic has made history for her country this week in Paris. She is the first Croatian man or woman to make the Olympic singles final. The result comes just weeks after her resurgent run through the grass season, where she made her first final of the season at Bad Homburg before booking a spot in her first major semifinal at Wimbledon. 

Playing in her second Olympics, No.21 Vekic has posted wins over Lucia Bronzetti, Bianca Andreescu, No.2 Coco Gauff and Kostyuk.