I am so envious, at the age of 21, she caught Li Na's "splashing wealth"!

Wow, when I opened Weibo in the past two days, my eyes were full of hot searches of "Zheng Qinwen's decisive battle for the Australian Open Grand Slam". For the people of the whole country, 10 years after Li Na won the Australian Open, it is a bit of a surprise that another Chinese girl has reached the final of a Grand Slam tournament, and she is only 21 years old. So CCTV5's live ratings have soared......

As a veteran tennis enthusiast, I am even more excited, knowing that I witnessed her victory at the Asian Games not long ago.

Although at the end of the Australian Open final, Zheng Qinwen was unable to defeat the previous tournament champion to go one step further. However, her "tall and strong body, bright and sunny smile, and undisguised true temperament" let us see what the younger generation of Chinese children looks like - independence, self-confidence and sunshine.

I was struck by a previous sports commentator's remark that their generation was told what the world really was like from an early age. From the very beginning, I was on the right path, and there was a lot less noise and finger-pointing to make me bold about my dreams, express my emotions, and put my energy where it was really worth and needed. For the post-80s generation who are imprisoned most of the time, this is very enviable.

Yes, I am so envious, so as the post-80s generation, we are even more eager for our children to be able to have their own lives freely, firmly and autonomously like Zheng Qinwen!

01

There are more options for childhood

is completely different from the tennis players in Li Na's era, Zheng Qinwen is no longer following the rules of the system, sports school.

She has had a lot of opportunities to try and explore since she was a child, and her parents have given her enough space to choose, and will give her clearer planning guidance as she grows, and try to find good resources to match it.

Just like we now take our children to participate in sports, Zheng Qinwen's parents initially took Zheng Qinwen to various sports including badminton, table tennis, basketball, football, etc., more to exercise, relax, and explore whether there are any sports that children are particularly good at.

At first, they chose table tennis for her, but after studying for a while, Zheng Qinwen felt that it was not enjoyable enough to go in and out around a table, and she preferred the sport of running.

In the year of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his father took his daughter to watch the competition, and Zheng Qinwen was attracted to tennis.

Because in her opinion, tennis has hard courts, red clay and grass, and the feeling of running is different, which is very interesting, and she has chosen tennis since then.

At that time, there were far fewer people playing tennis in China than there are now, and Zheng Qinwen's parents were relatively new to tennis, but they respected their daughter's choice and let her get in touch.

And in order to support Zheng Qinwen to practice anytime and anywhere, they also let her play in the open living room, and it is common for things at home to be messed up by balls.

Soon, they were also keenly aware of their daughter's talent in tennis, and then began to gather all kinds of information, and they realized that in order for their daughter to go further, they had to receive more professional training.

So Zheng Qinwen's parents took the initiative to take Zheng Qinwen out of Shiyan and went to Wuhan, where they followed Li Na's enlightenment coach Xia Xiyao and provincial team tennis coach Yu Liqiao, and firmly embarked on the road of professional tennis players.

After all, embarking on a career path is hard, but Zheng Qinwen is not afraid at all. Because she planted a seed in her heart to win a Grand Slam like Li Na.

Her parents have always encouraged her: "As long as you keep training, it will happen." ”

Modern parents are completely different from the past, and they no longer "suppress" their children, saying things such as "don't be so ambitious, practice what is in front of you first".

At the age of 12, Zheng Qinwen was selected by the famous sports agency IMG and obtained planning guidelines in line with international standards.

Parents also realized that Zheng Qinwen wanted to have greater growth and must receive more advanced international training, so they did their best and sent their daughter to Beijing Ingenuity Wheel Tennis School to study under the school's head coach Carlos, who helped Li Na win the 2014 Australian Open!

In addition to Carlos, there are several coaches who formulate training plans around Zheng Qinwen and participate in coaching training, the cost can be imagined to be very high, but in order to go all out to support their daughter's dream, her parents poured out their money.

02

The process of constantly discovering oneself and exploring the world

Zheng Qinwen's current head coach Riba mentioned a passage that impressed me very deeply when talking about her growth, that is, she has taken the right path since she was a child:

"She told me that she had trained with Carlos before, and obviously, she was on the right path since she was a child. ”

In his opinion, the years of following Carlos, in addition to helping Zheng Qinwen improve in terms of technology, more importantly, let her learn self-exploration, including positive expression, constant thinking and stable emotions. A good coach brings children not only technical improvement, but also tempering your will in an all-round way.

The current Zheng Qinwen is generous and full of self-confidence, not innate, but cultivated little by little from that time.

I have read Sanlian Weekly's report on her: When she first arrived at the Wheel of Ingenuity, Zheng Qinwen was introverted and did not like to talk, and there were still language communication barriers with foreign coaches, so she was even more silent.

For this reason, Carlos talked to her several times, and young players must learn to take the initiative to express their opinions, rather than what the coach says. In tennis, only the athlete is on the court, and he needs to face all the changes on the court alone.

Although Zheng Qinwen didn't like to talk at first, she also had obvious emotional catharsis when she didn't perform well in the game, but the coach didn't criticize her because of this, and felt that it was inappropriate to do so in public. Because their teaching philosophy is to spend more time helping her find out what the problem is, instead of spending time dwelling on emotional issues.

So the coach would only ask her to calm down that day, wait for the next day to talk to her, and let her say the problem by herself, such as "what do you think is the problem, how did you feel during the game, what happened at that time", and then Zheng Qinwen himself took the lead, and the coach worked out the next game strategy with her.

Every time you think about it, it is a process of self-exploration and a kind of growth.

Zheng Qinwen is a tireless child who is very demanding of himself in training. But in Carlos' training philosophy, teenagers can't train for too long. So there were a few times when Zheng Qinwen wanted to practice the last ball that was not practiced well in training, but when the time came, the coach resolutely disagreed, and Zheng Qinwen cried because of it.

But that can't be helped, she has to learn to think about why the ball didn't play well, instead of blindly extending the training time to do ineffective "involution". It only makes sense to continue training if you understand the crux of the problem.

The coach will also take her to Europe frequently to see the strong fighting spirit, extraordinary strength, and concentration of real masters when they are competing.

It's no wonder that Zheng Qinwen said in an interview many years later: "If a person really wants to be a champion, she has to do everything like a champion." ”

A reporter once asked her to describe her training experience as a child in one word, not about hard work, not about liking, but about "discovery" - a process of constantly discovering herself and exploring the outside world.

Isn't this exactly what our generation of parents want their children to find the most?

03

Coaching Turmoil: I make my own decisions about my career

As he transitioned from youth to adult, Zheng Qinwen's challenges escalated as he continued to improve.

At the age of 17, under the guidance of a coach, Zheng Qinwen and his current coach Pere Riba met in Spain, and then officially joined forces.

Pere Riba is a former professional tennis player with a world ranking of 65 before becoming a coach after a car accident.

Zheng Qinwen became his first disciple, and at that time some people questioned that Riba was not senior enough. Zheng Qinwen, who has not yet become famous, gave a powerful response: "If I play well, won't he become a famous coach?"

The cooperation between the two has also begun to bear fruit.

In 2022, at the age of 19, Zheng Qinwen won his first victory in the main draw of the Australian Open for the first time, and then advanced to the round of 16 of the French Open, and almost pulled down the world No. 1.

Her world ranking soared from 125th to 25th this year, winning the WTA Best Rookie award that year.

But Zheng Qinwen did not become the "rocket girl" expected by the public, and soared into the sky, and behind the climbing too fast was the pressure she couldn't bear at her age.

In the 2023 season, she has lost frequently, stopping in the second round of the French Open, and ending in heavy defeats in WTA Miami, Montreal and other tournaments one after another......

And Coach Riba also had no choice but to leave Zheng Qinwen because he failed to complete the KPI agreed with Zheng's father at the beginning of the year.

This is undoubtedly worse for Zheng Qinwen, although in addition to the goal in that agreement was not completed, the outside world asked her to change the coach one after another, but at that time, she did not want to change the coach,

It didn't take long for Zheng's team to find what seemed to be a better option, with Belgian coach Fisset, who has coached multiple Grand Slam titles, and Fisset vowed to make the Chinese teenager famous.

But the good times didn't last long, and within two or three months of their cooperation, Fassett unilaterally broke the contract and cooperated with the Japanese star Naomi Osaka instead.

This dealt a heavy blow to Zheng Qinwen, who was preparing to compete in the Asian Games, which meant that she had to accept the fact that she would play the Asian Games without a head coach. "I cried with my agent for a long time, I can understand it, but I won't forgive him!"

After winning the Asian Games, she admitted her injury and responded forcefully, "I can understand his choice, after all, Naomi Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam champion." From his point of view, he also has a family to live with. But that doesn't mean I'm going to forgive this person, I think it's a very immoral thing that hurts me and my family. ”

But no one expected that Zheng Qinwen, who was in such a predicament, became more and more courageous in the subsequent tour tournaments and won the WTA 500 event at the end of the year.

Many well-known coaches have also thrown olive branches, and when everyone was speculating about which big-name coach Zheng Qinwen's next coach would be, Zheng Qinwen made an unexpected decision - to renew the relationship with Riba and re-cooperate.

After experiencing the turmoil of changing coaches, she has grown tremendously psychologically. This time, she finally knew better what kind of coach she needed, and she was finally able to make her own decisions. "After I turned professional, I also communicated with my parents many times, hoping that they would feel comfortable handing me over to a professional team to build. We used to argue about different ideas about tennis, until I got some results, and they realized that I didn't need to get too involved in my career, and I could do just as well. ”

This time at the Australian Open, Zheng Qinwen was not accompanied by his family and competed alone with a multinational team. The head coach is Spanish, the rehab is Canadian, the strength and conditioning coach is Belgian, and the psychiatrist is American.

She brought people from so many countries together, twisted them into a rope, and worked hard for one goal, and Zheng's father praised his daughter: It's amazing.

Zheng Qinwen's reply actually made me a little teary-eyed, she said: "Dad, don't worry, my self-consciousness has awakened." ”

04

The balance between gains and losses

After Zheng Qinwen reached the final, he was interviewed by nine media outlets, and when all the interviews were completed, it was more than two o'clock in the morning local time in Melbourne.

Obviously, she is already in the spotlight, and this will be the norm for her in the future. In addition to training, she had to face the fact that she had to give a lot of interviews and participate in a lot of activities. She had to balance them as best she could.

But we don't seem to have to worry at all, she's been doing her homework on balance for a long time.

Talking about his growing popularity, Zheng Qinwen said, "There will definitely be more people who support me and like me, but there will also be people who hate me." When you don't have anything, no one cares about what you express, but when you become more and more successful, what you say and think, will be known by more people, which is a very gratifying thing. ”

Zheng Qinwen has always had a strong "hunger feeling" for her goals, and her dream is lofty and clear, which is to hit the Grand Slam. "If someone doesn't think so, I'm very skeptical that this person's vision is not good."

But when she is close to the goal, she will try to be calm and restrained, such as entering the French Open and the Australian Open top 8 one after another, Zheng Xinwen is very sober: "I don't think it's okay to enter the quarterfinals, all I think about now is how to improve every day and how to do my best." ”

In the final of the Australian Open Grand Slam, Zheng Qinwen was happy but not excited, she said: "It's not yet time for big ups and downs. She admits that she did find a better balance between confidence and humility – it's not a good thing to be overconfident, but if I was humble, I wouldn't be able to face my opponents in the ring.

In the face of pressure, she welcomes it: "Sometimes pressure is necessary and motivates me to do better. I want to be in a state of progress all the time, and I can't imagine the pain it would bring me if I was stagnant. ”

But when she walks into the ring, she's also learning to manage her own pressure, and she tells herself: "I don't want to go that far, I always think that winning will put more pressure on me, I just need to focus on the moment and hit that ball." ”

It is a difficult lesson in life, and if our children can realize and learn it so early, how lucky they should be, it will help reduce a lot of mental friction.

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is full of love and dedication to tennis, but Zheng Qinwen still clearly knows that tennis is not all she has.

She likes to sing, dance, and read, especially in psychology, "My parents have always taught me to never stop learning, which is conducive to the development of my healthy personality." ”

So when asked what advice she has for kids who love tennis, she said: "I've heard a lot of people say that if you're a good person, you have a better chance of winning. I hope that the little ones who see me will see that I am not only a good player, but also a good person. Off the field is a very sunny person who can love life. I think it's a great motivation for the younger generation. ”

This is not the myth of all-round excellence in morality, intelligence, physical fitness, beauty and labor, but her complete and sound understanding of her life.

I really hope that every child can become Zheng Qinwen.