Zheng Qinwen became China's first-ever tennis singles Olympic champion on Saturday, beating Donna Vekic of Croatia 6-2, 6-3 in the final on the clay courts of Roland Garros.

Zheng held her serve in the last game to seal the win, rounding out the match with a well-placed forehand winner. She then collapsed onto her back with joy on court, dropping her racket and raising her arms in the air. 

A large contingent of Chinese fans were on hand to cheer the rising star and world number 7 towards victory.

"For the final today the atmosphere was incredible, all the Chinese fans yelling for me. Two years ago that would have been pressure but today I kept calm and handled it well," Zheng said after the game. 

"This Olympic journey has not been easy, I had a lot of tough fights and some matches I nearly lost," Zheng said. 

Perhaps the most notable of these tough fights was Zheng's quarterfinal win over Germany's veteran Angelique Kerber, playing the last tournament of a storied professional career, which went all the way to a tie-break in the third and final set.

China had never won a singles tennis medal at the Olympics, but Li Ting and Sun Tian-Tian did claim women's doubles gold in Athens in 2004. 

Vekic upbeat despite defeat after 'incredible' recovery from severe knee injury and surgery

Both women were vying for the same honor on Saturday — no Croatian player has ever won singles gold either — but Zheng was the bookmaker's favorite and the higher-ranked player going into the match. 

Donna Vekic said that even claiming silver on Saturday was "incredible" given her ordeals in recent years that she said had led her to considering retirement as recently as last month. She's been struggling to return to full fitness after major knee surgery in 2021.

The 28-year-old, 21st in the WTA rankings, said that after her impressive but grueling run to the semi-finals in Wimbledon earlier in July, she nearly pulled out of the Olympics.

"After the Wimbledon semi-finals, I had so much pain everywhere that I was debating going to the Olympics because I thought 'in these conditions, there is no way I can win a medal'," she told reporters.

"When we had our first practice, I told my coach I was coughing so bad I couldn't hit two shots in a row. One week later, we have a medal. So it's been absolutely, absolutely incredible," Vekic said.

Meanwhile, world number one, Iga Swiatek of Poland claimed bronze at the expense of Slovakia's Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the third-place playoff on Friday. 

msh/lo (AFP, Reuters)