Zheng Qinwen Fights Past a 16-Year-Old for Her First Grand Slam Win in Over a Year
China's top tennis player beat the teenage qualifier Lutkova 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 in the US Open first round, ending a four-match Grand Slam losing streak and taking her first major main-draw win since the 2025 French Open. She revealed afterwards she had been ill enough to feel dizzy on court.
For most of the past year, Grand Slam first rounds have been where Zheng Qinwen's seasons went to die. On Monday in New York, China's top tennis player finally stopped the slide, coming back from a set down to beat the 16-year-old qualifier Lutkova 4-6, 6-3, 6-1. It was her first win in a major main draw since the 2025 French Open, and it ended a run of four consecutive Grand Slam defeats that included first-round exits at the last three majors — a stretch a fan statistician laid out in full within minutes of the final point: quarterfinal loss at Roland Garros 2025, first-round losses at Wimbledon in both 2025 and 2026, and another at this year's French Open.
The draw had looked kindly on paper and anything but in practice. Lutkova arrived on a nine-match winning streak — six straight to take a title in Memphis, then three more through qualifying — and played like it, reading Zheng's power early and taking the first set. As the WTA's Weibo account put it, Zheng overcame losing the opening set before pulling decisively away, sealing her first US Open main-draw win in two years.
Dizzy, and winning anyway
The post-match interview explained the tension in her game. "First I want to congratulate my opponent, because she is only 16 and she played really good, really tough tennis," Zheng said. "I wasn't at my best physically — I fell ill a few days ago, and at times out there I felt dizzy. All I could do today was fight with everything I had." Winning, she said, meant a great deal after more than a year of waiting. She also recalled that her first Grand Slam quarterfinal came at the US Open, which is why playing in New York "always feels special."
Chinese fans have learned to hold both truths about Zheng at once, and their shorthand for it became the viral artifact of the day. A supporter account posted a mock journal citation from the "Lancet of Tennis" (网坛《柳叶刀》) — the pun works because the Chinese name of the medical journal begins with the same character as Lutkova's surname — which "reported" that Zheng is known for the most gripping matches in women's tennis: capable of pulling away on raw baseline power, just as capable of handing the lead back, dragging fans through violent swings of hope and despair. "No lead is ever safe," it concluded, liked more than 5,800 times.
There was company in the breakthrough column: Wu Yibing, whose own comeback has run quietly alongside hers, beat Australia's Walton in straight sets on Sunday to reach the US Open second round for the third time. The two results put Chinese tennis on Baidu's trending board as well, where Zheng's comeback sat in the top ten by evening.
Next comes the winner of Belinda Bencic and Yulia Putintseva — and, in September, a schedule that finally offers room to build rather than defend.