Qinwen Zheng wins the China Open. In the final in Beijing, the home favourite beat Mirra Andreeva 7-5 6-4 to take the WTA 1000 title, in a tournament that ended on Sunday 11 October in front of her home crowd.
The numbers for the week are heavy. Zheng collects 1,000 points and, in the live rankings, goes from 1,083 to 2,018 points: +935 net, because the 65 points from the third round she reached a year ago drop off. Before the tournament she was No. 54; the live rankings now put her at No. 24.
Andreeva takes home 650 points for the final and rises from 5,841 to 6,371: +530 net, because the 120 points from her 2025 round of 16 expire. She stays at No. 5, with Jessica Pegula (No. 4) 504 points ahead and Elina Svitolina (No. 6) 1,347 behind.
Zheng's road was anything but a stroll. She began against Han Shi, beaten 7-6(6) 4-6 6-2, then got past Anna Kalinskaya: 6-7(4) 6-4 and a retirement from her opponent at 3-0 in the third set.
The toughest test came against Marie Bouzkova, won 7-6(3) 4-6 7-5. At 35 games it was the longest match of the whole tournament: Zheng lost the second set and had to put the pieces back together in the third, all the way to the decisive 7-5.
In the quarter-finals Zheng eliminated Svitolina 6-3 7-6(6), with the second set going to a tie-break. In the semi-final she faced Elise Mertens and beat her 7-5 6-2.
Mertens was no ordinary opponent: in the draw she had already stopped Iga Swiatek 7-6(0) 6-3 and Jelena Ostapenko 6-2 3-6 6-3. Zheng ended her run with a first set settled at 7-5 and a second that finished 6-2.
On the other side of the net, Andreeva reached the final more smoothly. In the matches listed on the site she dropped just one set, the first against Yue Yuan (3-6 6-0 6-0), then beat Polina Kudermetova 6-4 6-1 and Daria Snigur 6-2 6-2.
The most serious test for the Russian was the derby with Ekaterina Alexandrova in the quarter-finals: 7-6(4) 7-6(3), two tie-breaks won. In the semi-final she then beat Nikola Bartunkova 6-2 6-2, the Czech who had eliminated Aryna Sabalenka (6-4 6-3) and Karolina Muchova (6-3 6-0) in the tournament.
The final was settled in two sets: 7-5 6-4, no tie-break. Zheng closed out the first at 7-5 and kept control of the second all the way to 6-4.
The head-to-head tells of a rivalry that is still young but already lopsided. Zheng leads 2-0, with two wins from two in Beijing: the first in the 2024 quarter-finals, coming back from 5-7 with a 6-0 6-4, the second in this final.
For Zheng it is the high point of a season that otherwise had no peaks: quarter-finals at the US Open (430 points) and in Athens (WTA 250, 55 points), round of 16 at Bad Homburg, first round at Wimbledon. The title arrives on the back of 10 wins in her last 10 matches.
On hard courts Zheng has a record of 59 wins and 33 losses between 2021 and 2025, and among her most-played rivalries are those with Iga Swiatek (1-7 in 8 matches) and Aryna Sabalenka (1-6 in 7): numbers that make the weight of this week even clearer.
Meanwhile, the points from the 2025 edition have come off the rankings: Anisimova loses the 1,000 for the title, Noskova the 650 for the final, Gauff and Pegula the 390 for the semi-finals, while Emma Navarro, Eva Lys, Jasmine Paolini and Sonay Kartal see the 215 for the quarter-finals expire. It is the least visible part of a tournament, but it redraws the table.
Andreeva's overall record between 2022 and 2025 reads 83 wins from 122 matches (68%), with 3 titles from 4 finals. Among her most-played rivalries are those with Aryna Sabalenka (2-4 in 6), Barbora Krejcikova (3-2 in 5) and Cori Gauff (0-5 in 5).
Andreeva has a 2025 of 39 wins and 16 losses with 2 titles behind her, and a solid 2026: quarter-finals at the US Open, round of 16 at Cincinnati and Toronto, second round at Wimbledon. She is 8-2 in her last 10 matches, and her career high remains No. 5 from 7 July 2026.
The China Open confirmed its reputation as a tournament that changes hands: Iga Swiatek in 2023, Cori Gauff in 2024, Amanda Anisimova in 2025 (6-0 2-6 6-2 over Linda Noskova), now Zheng. Four editions, four different champions.
The draw had 90 players from 32 nations, and China had eight of them: the best of them won the title. There were 163 matches played, with 37 tie-breaks, 12 sets finishing 6-0, 4 retirements and 55 matches that went to a deciding set.
A joke is due at this point: a player who was No. 54 at the start of the week and ends it holding a 1,000-point trophy has found the most effective way to remind us that the ranking is, after all, just a ranking.
And now? For Zheng, the week in Beijing changes the outlook for the end of the season, with 2,018 live ranking points to consolidate. For Andreeva there are only 55 points to defend over the next six weeks: the room to chase Pegula, 504 points ahead, is still there to be played for.
Test yourself
3 questions on what you have just read.
1. What was the score of the final?
2. How many net points does Zheng gain in the live rankings?
3. Who did Zheng face in the semi-final?