#长文创作激励计划#
01
In 2022, Zheng Qinwen won all four Grand Slam tournaments for the first time, and reached the round of 16 in his first match at the French Open.
Reaching the final of the tour for the first time in Tokyo, she was dubbed "Rocket Girl" by fans and won the WTA Rookie of the Year.
In 2023, Zheng Qinwen will reach the top of women's tennis in Asia, and won the women's singles championship at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
It was also that year that in the "2023 List of Highest Paid Female Athletes in Sports" announced by Forbes magazine, Zheng Qinwen ranked 15th with 7.2 million US dollars (about 51 million yuan).
Of that amount, $1.7 million came from competition prize money and $5.5 million from sponsors, which Forbes defines as "with great future business potential."
Zheng Qinwen has long been famous, and it was only at the Paris Olympics that he made a splash.
In the recently concluded Paris Olympics tennis women's singles final, Zheng Qinwen was so angry that the opponent threw the racket with a big score of 2:0, defeated Croatia women's tennis star Vekic on the court, won the championship, and created the best result of the Chinese tennis singles Olympic Games.
It broke the history of no Asian athlete reaching the singles final of a tennis event since the Olympics had a tennis competition.
And those who have really paid attention to this Olympic tennis event know that on Zheng Qinwen's road to winning the championship, the most exciting thing is not the final, but the semi-final.
Because in the semifinals, she met the current world No. 1 and Poland tennis star Swiatek, who won three consecutive championships on the clay court of Roland Garros, the holder of a 25-match winning streak and known as the "clay hegemon".
Of course, this is not the hardest to overcome.
The most difficult thing to overcome is that in the six previous meetings between Zheng Qinwen and her, none of them have won.
For Zheng Qinwen, who is about to meet her in the semifinals, there is no need to describe too much about how much pressure there is.
At least in terms of momentum, it suppressed Zheng Qinwen ruthlessly.
In addition, before this match, Zheng Qinwen had been deeply involved in each three-hour, three-set game for two consecutive days, and his physical exertion was close to the critical value.
Therefore, before the semifinals, no one was optimistic about Zheng Qinwen at all, and she went to the Olympic arena to exercise.
But the people who are not good-looking by everyone are the most competitive.
In the first set, Zheng Qinwen broke serve in a row and easily won 6:2 with a flowing attack.
It was a crucial set that boosted her self-confidence.
But Jiang is still old and spicy, in the next second set, Swiatek, who seems to be a little "lightly opposed", slowly found his form, and scored 4 points in a row at the beginning, but Zheng Qinwen did not panic, but showed extraordinary calmness and tenacity, and finally with a strong serve, excellent baseline technology and characteristic small balls, he chased ball by ball, won the second set 7-5, and finally advanced to the final, and locked the unexpected medal for the Chinese team in advance.
After the game, some professionals analyzed the data of the two, and Zheng Qinwen was able to win only because of two key factors: the first is a good serve, and the second is that there are few mistakes.
Zheng Qinwen scored 6 more points than his opponent in terms of directly related points on serve.
In terms of winning points, Zheng Qinwen only has 13 unforced errors, while Swiatek has a whopping 36, which is a difference of 23 points.
In other words, Zheng Qinwen, who was only born in 2002, is only 22 years old when he is fully counted, but his psychological quality is not inferior to the world's famous players who have been on the field for a long time, and even in adversity, he can break through himself and stimulate his potential, so as to reverse the situation and turn defeat into victory.
And this is also the most gratifying part of this Olympic Games.
For the young generation of Chinese players, the championship is just a wonderful moment in the career of professional athletes, and a strong heart is the key to long-term prosperity.
In the quarterfinals of the men's singles table tennis, Fan Zhendong did it.
Now, Zheng Qinwen has also done it.
Swiatek said bluntly after the game:
I cried for 6 hours after losing to Zheng Qinwen, and if it weren't for the competition, I might have cried for a week!
Zheng became the first Asian player to beat the No. 1 player on clay since the inception of the WTA World Rankings in 1975.
It's just that her success, ordinary people simply can't replicate.
02
Zheng Qinwen was born in Shiyan, Hubei Province, China, to her father, Zheng Jianping, who was a track and field athlete.
Maybe since he was born, he inherited his father's sports genes, Zheng Qinwen was different from other girls when he was a child, he loved sports very much, he didn't want to take a car anywhere, and he always liked to run to reach his destination.
Her father, who discovered her athletic talent for the first time, began to deliberately train her again, table tennis, badminton, basketball, ...... They all reported to her.
Although Zheng Qinwen is very enthusiastic about these sports, he can't say how much he likes them, and his grades are always mediocre after studying for a period of time.
Zheng Jianping did not give up, while respecting his daughter's choice, he continued to find a suitable sports program for her.
Until Zheng Qinwen was 6 years old, the Olympic Games were held in Beijing, Zheng Jianping took his daughter to Beijing to watch the Olympics, but Zheng Qinwen was deeply attracted to tennis, and even regarded Li Na as his idol.
Coincidentally, fate is the most wonderful.
She and Li Na have a lot in common:
They are all from Hubei;
The body size is similar:
Li Na is 172cm tall and weighs 65kg, and Zheng Qinwen is 178cm tall and weighs 70kg.
Of course, that's not all.
After returning to his hometown, Zheng Qinwen told his father that he wanted to learn tennis and become a professional tennis player.
You must know that in Zheng Qinwen's hometown, tennis is not popular, and it can even be regarded as a rich man's sport.
On top of that, coaching talent is scarce.
But Zheng Qinwen, who picked up a tennis racket for the first time, showed an amazing talent in this.
As soon as Zheng Jianping saw "Youxi", he became even more determined to cultivate his daughter's tennis.
A year later, he took his daughter to Wuhan, 250 kilometers away, which is the hometown of his daughter's idol Li Na.
And, after a lot of hard work, I finally found two coaches, one is Xia Xixi and the other is Yu Liqiao. And the latter is Li Na's former instructor.
In Wuhan, Zheng Qinwen practiced basic skills for four years.
"It was a very difficult time for me because my parents weren't around," she later recalled. They basically only come to see me once a week or two weeks. ”
These four years are also the most memorable four years of Zheng Qinwen's tennis career.
In 2013, in the Nike National Youth Tennis Ranking Tournament in Wuhan, Zheng Qinwen, who was only 10 years old, won the first national championship in her life.
When the coach talks about her, he always uses the word "hardworking" to describe her.
Although she is not the most gifted of all the children, she is the hardest working of all the children.
Others have a group of 20 balls, she always has to secretly practice to 30, and after each training, she will pestering the coach to ask questions to see where she still needs to improve and improve, which is undoubtedly the "small town problem-solver" in the tennis world.
In the past four years, Zheng Qinwen has also made rapid progress both physically and psychologically.
Her performance in various national competitions shocked even the leaders of the sports center: the strength and speed that burst out of this little girl's body were completely different from those of her peers.
Zheng Qinwen, who was only 12 years old at the time, had a serving speed of 170 km/h, or 47 m/s, and once fractured the opponent's hand with a serve, and became famous in the national tennis circle.
You must know that the world record for women's serve speed is about 210 km/h, which is relatively rare in the country and even in the world.
03
Because of his outstanding performance, Zheng Qinwen got the opportunity to go to Beijing to train in 2015, and studied under Li Na's mentor Carlos, who was also Li Na's last coach before retiring.
Is this a perfect reproduction of Li Na's brilliance again?
Of course, this is what everyone expects.
Zheng Qinwen, in particular, has made a grand wish in his heart: to win a Grand Slam championship like Sister Li Na!
Soon, Zheng Qinwen's performance did not live up to everyone's expectations.
In 2018, at the Eddie Herr International Junior Tennis Championships held by IMG Academy in Florida, United States, 16-year-old Zheng Qinwen won the U18 championship.
In that year, he also won the runner-up in the orange bowl, and the following year, he reached the semifinals in the French Open and the US Open junior group.
As a teenager, Zheng Qinwen was ranked sixth in the world.
In August 2020, at the age of 18, Zheng Qinwen decided to step into the professional arena and chose Spain as her training venue.
It was also here that Zheng Qinwen's skills improved rapidly.
Zhang Shuai, the world's No. 1 Chinese tennis player who was defeated by Zheng Qinwen, once commented on this little sister:
Zheng Qinwen can play a strong forehand topspin, serving speed, serve accuracy, line change ability, movement speed are all great, she can also make sliding and cutting movements on hard courts, is a very well-rounded tennis player.
Sure enough, in 2022, Zheng Qinwen began to reap his own achievements in the world tennis arena, shining brightly, winning many world-famous tennis tournaments in one fell swoop, and the year-end ranking once jumped to 25th.
Finally, in 2023, Zheng Qinwen, who is only 21 years old, catches up with his idol and becomes the youngest player in Chinese tennis history to reach a Grand Slam final.
And her idol Li Na, when she came to this point, was close to 29 years old.
And to summarize her and Li Na's fate, perhaps this is the most anticipated one:
Li Na is 20 years older than Zheng Qinwen, Li Na won the Australian Open 10 years ago, Zheng Qinwen has not won it, only won the runner-up.
But you have to admit that Zheng Qinwen has more advantages in terms of physical hardware.
Zheng Qinwen once revealed his desire for a Grand Slam championship in an interview:
Usually when I was a child, I always wanted to win a Grand Slam title, and I started to have it when I was about 9 or 10 years old, and I would make this wish on my birthday basically every year.
I still remember that at the Australian Open, someone asked Zheng Qinwen: Will he surpass Li Na?
She said, "Everyone is different and has a different path to take. ”
Zheng Qinwen went from 630th to 7th in the world in just over three years.
Indeed, everyone's success is irreproducible, whether it is Li Na or Zheng Qinwen.
But what successful people have in common is that they are all similar.
04
First of all, money.
As we all know, professional athletes are very expensive on this road.
Someone once broke the news on the Internet, saying that Zheng Qinwen has invested a total of 20 million yuan in his family since he started learning tennis at the age of 6 and has become a professional.
When it was difficult, in order to let Zheng Qinwen continue to train in United States, his mother sold all the houses in his hometown.
People who know Zheng Qinwen's original family may know more or less well that her family's economic conditions are not bad at all.
Zheng Jianping is in business, and his local income is not bad, but in order to let Zheng Qinwen go to Europe to practice, he did almost everything.
Over the years, it is not only the cost of time that has been invested, but also the "ability to make money".
From the public information, it can be seen that Zheng Qinwen's team currently has three people:
Personal trainer Pere · Riva is a former professional men's singles athlete and is responsible for all her training and match plans as well as her diet. There are also full-time physical trainer Jody · Verdagul and rehabilitation therapist Jiwen.
You must know that the expenses of the entire coaching team need to be borne by Zheng Qinwen.
Usually training is good, Zheng Qinwen often flies around the world to compete, and all kinds of expenses in between, including food, clothing, housing and transportation, are the biggest expenses.
At least a few million a year.
And this money, in addition to the sponsorship of the domestic provincial team, more of them paid out of their own pockets, most of which came from the competition bonus, and later became famous and some sponsors' advertising fees.
Secondly, it is self-discipline.
Zheng Qinwen once wrote on social media: Exercise makes me more self-disciplined.
In order to maintain a qualified body fat percentage, she can barely eat snacks or drink alcohol, and insists on eating chicken breast and broccoli every day.
Zheng Qinwen's coach Riba has said that he has never seen such a highly professional and self-disciplined player, always ready to train, and has never complained.
Zheng Qinwen's character of not giving up if he doesn't play well also made coach Riba bluntly say that "sometimes you have to stop her from doing more".
Zheng Jianping also admitted that during the epidemic in Spain, many players who trained together chose to return to China, but only Zheng Qinwen has always insisted on training.
At its worst, the training ground in Spain began to be controlled from 7 a.m., and for this reason, Zheng Qinwen had 4 months to get up at 4:30 every morning and practice until 7 a.m.
Now that I think about it, it was the special training during this special period that gave Zheng Qinwen the opportunity to overtake in the corner.
Finally, there is support.
In order to support their daughter's dream, Zheng Qinwen's parents not only provided great help financially, but also mentally became the most powerful backer behind Zheng Qinwen.
From her hometown to Wuhan, from Wuhan to Beijing, from Beijing to Europe, from Europe to the Paris Olympics, Zheng Qinwen's parents have always been by her side, and her mother even quit her job to become her personal housekeeper full-time.
In order to make it easier for Zheng Qinwen to train at home at any time, their home never had a television, and even the living room was almost unfurnished.
Perhaps, it is precisely because of the silent support and encouragement of his family that Zheng Qinwen has Zheng Qinwen's super mental quality and indomitable competitiveness on the field.
And that's where the most invincible thing is compared to technology.
As Zheng Qinwen said:
My biggest strength is not any technique, but the desire to win.
After this battle, Zheng Qinwen really stepped onto the top of Asian women's tennis.
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