Wang Qiang will retire from her Hologic WTA Tour career at the end of 2024, the former World No.12 told reporters this week.
Following her 6-2, 7-5 first-round loss to No.16 seed Liudmila Samsonova at the US Open, Wang announced that she had played her final Grand Slam match. She will play her final international WTA tournaments in the Asian swing over the coming months, with events in Beijing, Osaka and Tokyo on her schedule. Wang plans to compete in domestic tournaments next year and to end her career after the 2025 Chinese National Games.
Wang, 32, cited mental exhaustion from travelling and severe jet lag as reasons for ending her career, revealing that after returning to China from Wimbledon this year, she was only able to sleep for two or three hours per night for the next 10 days.
Wang ends her Grand Slam career at the site of her best major performance, a quarterfinal run at the 2019 US Open that featured a stunning 6-2, 6-4 fourth-round upset of No.2 seed Ashleigh Barty. The following year, she also defeated Serena Williams 6-4, 6-7(2), 7-5 to reach the fourth round of the Australian Open for the first time. At Roland Garros and Wimbledon, her career-best performances were third-round runs in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Wang notched seven Top 10 wins in total: as well as the two headline upsets over Barty and Serena Williams, she also scored victories over Venus Williams (Roland Garros 2018), Karolina Pliskova (Wuhan and Beijing 2018) and Elina Svitolina (Hong Kong 2018).
The second half of 2018 was the finest stretch of Wang's career, and the best showcase of her precise, hard-hitting baseline game. Ranked No.80 in mid-July, she proceeded to compile a 29-9 record through the end of the year, which she finished at No.20.
That included her first (and only) two WTA titles in Nanchang and Guangzhou; runner-up showings in Hong Kong and the Zhuhai Elite Trophy; and three semifinal runs, including at back-to-back WTA 1000 events in Wuhan and Beijing. As well as Pliskova and Svitolina, Wang posted wins over Svetlana Kuznetsova, Maria Sakkari, Jelena Ostapenko, Aryna Sabalenka, Garbiñe Muguruza and Madison Keys during this stretch. Wang would reach her career-high ranking of No.12 in September 2019.
Four of Wang's five tour-level finals came in 2018, but in 2021 she defeated Petra Martic and Sloane Stephens to reach her first and only clay-court final in Parma, where she fell to Coco Gauff.
After losing to Elise Mertens in the first round of Tokyo 2022 and ending that season ranked No.92, Wang did not compete in 2023. She returned to action in Hua Hin this January, won the Wuning ITF W50 event in April and is currently ranked No.438. Wang's most recent tour-level victory was over Yanina Wickmayer in the first round of Chennai 2022.
