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E-mail Xinhua, August 4, 2024
Zheng Qinwen of China celebrates after the women's singles gold medal match of tennis against Donna Vekic of Croatia at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, on Aug. 3, 2024. [Photo/Xinhua]
China's tennis ace Zheng Qinwen defeated Donna Vekic of Croatia 6-2, 6-3 for the women's singles gold at the Paris Olympics on Saturday.
This is also China's second Olympic tennis gold. The last time China saw gold in an Olympic tennis event was Athens 2004, where Li Ting and Sun Tiantian defeated Spain's Conchita Martinez and Virginia Ruano Pascual to win the women's doubles title.
Supported by passionate Chinese fans who made their voices heard from the opening serve, Zheng broke immediately to take a two game lead.
Zheng's serve came under heavy pressure in the third game from Vekic, but the Chinese was able to withstand the long battle of deuce to shore up a 3-0 lead.
Vekic's pressure on Zheng continued, but backed by the noisy Chinese fans, Zheng remained firm.
Zheng took the first set after breaking Vekic in the eighth game after hitting some trademark winners in 48 minutes.
More of those winners were on display in the second set as Zheng broke first to lead 2-0. But the Croatian won back two games to level the score at 2-2.
While Zheng won a point with a forehand overhead winner to lead the seventh game at 40-15, Vekic suffered a nervous breakdown, throwing her racquet to the ground and took a while to calm down again. Zheng then kept her momentum to claim the final victory without let-up.
At the moment Zheng sealed the win, she threw her racquet up to the sky and lied on the ground to celebrate the historic moment for herself as well as for her country.
Earlier on Friday afternoon, world No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland downed Anna Karolina Schmiedlova from Slovakia 6-2, 6-1 to claim the bronze medal.
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