Zheng Qinwen celebrates Zhengzhou Open title with karaoke session

Zheng Qinwen celebrated with an impromptu karaoke session after winning her second career title – and her first on home soil – at the Zhengzhou Open on Sunday.

But fans joked the popular 21-year-old may be better off sticking to tennis rather than singing.

With her hard-fought 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 win over Czech seventh-seed and former French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova, Zheng became just the third Chinese woman to win a singles title at the WTA 500 level or higher, after the legendary Li Na and Zheng Saisai.

Chinese tennis seems to be on the up overall, with 2023 marking the first year in WTA Tour history that three different women from the country have won singles titles, after Zhu Lin triumphed in Hua Hin, Wang Xiyu won in Guangzhou, and Zheng claimed her first trophy in Palermo in July.

After winning the Asian Games gold medal last month, world No 24 Zheng suffered a disappointing first-round loss at the China Open to Elena Rybakina, but she recovered to secure the biggest title of her young career two weeks later.

Zheng sealed the victory with an ace, and then grabbed the mic for a singalong with the crowd at the insistence of the host at the trophy ceremony.

Opinions on social media regarding her rendition of KEY.L and Kafe.Hu’s 2020 hit song “Economy Class” were split, to say the least, however.

“Best part of the ceremony!” one user wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, where another comment read: “Am I the only one who liked this video? She’s not the best singer, but it was from the heart.”

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“Next stop, Pop Idol,” another fan wrote with a laughing emoji, while others joked that Zheng “should not quit her day job”.

“I think this is close to my level of karaoke. I salute you, Qinwen,” a humble netizen said.

“Hey, I think she did a better job than Carrie Underwood would have if they asked her to hit forehands after winning American Idol,” another fan joked.

Speaking at her post-match press conference, Zheng insisted that she did not choose the song – hence she did not remember all of the lyrics.

“I only remembered the lyrics at the climax, but I actually like this song quite a lot, because I used to fly economy class in the beginning,” Zheng said. “When I was a kid, everyone used to fly economy class when participating in competitions.

“Now I’m slowly becoming more and more popular. After you get better at playing, you go to distant places to participate in competitions, especially places like Australia and the United States.

“You can start flying in business class, which is a very different feeling, because you can rest better and save more energy.”

“I still miss those days of flying in economy class, because the seats were closer at that time and it was more convenient for everyone to communicate. I still feel a bit lonely flying in business class,” she added, laughing.

The Chinese No 1 may have to get used to the high life, however, with her victory on Sunday set to propel her back into the top 20 of the WTA rankings.

“That was such a special experience to win my first WTA 500 in China, especially in Zhengzhou,” said Zheng, who also made the quarterfinals of this year’s US Open.

“It’s a lot of pressure, you could see in the match. In the first set, I was leading 2-0, [then] I lost six games in a row.

“There were a lot of ups-and-downs, but in the end, the important [thing] is to win the match, whatever happens.”