Who will Zheng Qinwen face in the women’s singles tennis final?

China’s Zheng Qinwen caused the upset of the day, beating the world No.1 Iga Swiatek in two sets (6-2, 7-5) to book a place in the women’s gold medal game. A fairytale for the 21-year-old who is taking part in her first Olympics. Not only did she bring the Polish player’s 25-game unbeaten strak at Roland-Garros to and end, she also becomes the first Chinese player to reach an Olympic final in the tennis event.

As Swiatek’s return bounced out to give her the seventh game in the second set, Zheng fell to the floor on Court Philippe-Chatrier in disbelief.

Triumphant Zheng, tired but happy

“I feel more than just happy, she admitted afterwards. “Happy isn’t enough to describe how I feel. I’m tired but if you ask me to play another three hours for my country, I would do it. Everyone knows how I want to get this medal for my country. So you cannot imagine how much pressure I had... especially after eight hours on court in three days, beating the world No. 1. It’s unbelievable but it makes my journey more meaningful because I always wanted to play the best players and beat them. That’s what I want to show for my tennis. To beat Iga is not easy.”

Zheng, who reached the Australian Open final at the start of the year, losing to Aryna Sabalenka, will face Croatia’s Donna Vekić in her second final of the year in the Paris 2024 gold medal match on Saturday 3 August on Court Philippe-Chatrier with the game starting at 8 a.m. ET / 5 a.m. PT. Vekić, who is ranked 21st in the WTA rankings, beat Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-4 6-0 to book her place.

It’s another career milestone for the 28-year-old, who made it to the semi-finals at Wimbledon last month only to lose to Jasmine Paolini. This is the furthest she has gone at the Games - at Tokyo 2020 she defeated world No. 3, Aryna Sabalenka, in the second round but fell in the next game to Elena Rybakina.