Game, Set, Match: Zheng Qinwen beats Donna Vekic to win Olympic gold

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PARIS — Zheng Qinwen beat Donna Vekic in the women’s singles Olympic gold medal match at Roland Garros 6-2, 6-3 on Saturday.

The No 6 seed prevailed over the No 13 seed in a one-sided, if tense victory, ultimately decided by the contrast between Zheng’s use of shape and slice, and Vekic’s combination of ballstriking and drop-shots.

It is Zheng’s first Olympic medal, and China’s first Olympic singles medal in tennis.

Vekic’s silver medal adds to one of her most successful seasons on tour, after the Croatian reached the Wimbledon semifinals a few weeks ago.

The Athletic’s Matt Futterman and James Hansen analyze the final and what it means for tennis.

How did Zheng Qinwen spin her way to the first set?

In her quarterfinal against Germany’s Angelique Kerber, Zheng found herself in a succession of high, heavy rallies that tennis fans prefer to call “moonballing.” Taken to an extreme, shots looping into the sky, this tactic forces an opponent to generate all their shot speed from their kinetic chain — instead of using the speed of the incoming ball. It often settles into a moonball versus moonball pattern, as each tries to tease the other into making an error.

Zheng clearly took lessons from this (if not to the extremes deployed by Kerber in a three-set marathon). First, she used high, heavy forehands against world No 1 Iga Swiatek to disrupt the Pole’s ability to win cheap points behind her first serve. Then, against Vekic, she used similar tactics, at times using higher, slower shots to take the ball out of the Croatian’s strike zone, and at other times dragging her back and wide in the court with shots that spat up off the clay.

The use of heavy topspin also added margin to her more attacking shots, hitting 12 winners to Vekic’s three despite the more overt aggression coming from the Croatian’s racket. That was partly due to balls nicking lines; it was also due to how the heaviness of Zheng’s forehand exposed any slight mishit from Vekic, especially when running around to hit a forehand off her backhand side. Make a small miscalculation, and the court was gaping for Zheng to hit an easy ball into space.

Zheng also used the opposite shot — the slice — both on return and in rallies, to neutralise Vekic and force her to play more balls. Against Vekic’s game, which is built on huge groundstrokes and winning as many points as possible off the first or second strike, it proved a hugely effective tactic and spun her to the first set.

James Hansen

How to reckon the closeness of a set that ends 6-2?

Given her level on Saturday, Vekic probably wasn’t going to win this match no matter what happened on any one point. Zheng made her work for just about everything she got, and on a day when Vekic couldn’t get a feel for the ball, that made the outcome a reasonably foregone conclusion once the Croatian realized that she wasn’t going to able to shoot for the lines — because she simply wasn’t hitting them.

That said, there were moments in the first set when Vekic looked like she might be getting on track after a nervous start. Zheng had to save two break points in the process of going up 3-0, and then with Zheng serving at 4-2, Vekic earned another break point. The crowd got behind her in a way that is not so common during her matches, chanting her name and seemingly swinging some momentum behind her for the first time.

But then Zheng did what she did so many times during her run to the Australian Open final in January, playing a smart and aggressive point at the moment when she most needed to. A big serve, moving forward into the court, hitting a smashed volley that Vekic could barely paddle back, and then a soft one out of her reach.

Vekic’s shoulders sagged as she watched it bounce twice. It was the body language of a player who knew she had frittered away a big chance.

Vekic had chances to make inroads in the first set, despite the one-sided scoreline (Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images)

Vekic and her coaches, Nikola Horvat and Pam Shriver, have worked hard this year on her ability to reset, to absorb a bad moment, or a bad game or set, and move on to the next ball.

If ever there was a time to put those practices into force, this was it. But the reset didn’t come. Zheng settled herself to win that game, then broke Vekic in the next one to take the set 6-2, mostly by letting Vekic do most of the damage to herself.

She would win the first two games of the second set as well, and while she gave back the service break, Vekic ran out of games before she could find the rhythm and the confidence that had carried her to the Wimbledon semifinals last month.

Matt Futterman

Why did Vekic’s touch go awry?

Sword-and-shield is one of tennis’s more telling but hoary metaphors, hinting that the best players have a shot with which they attack and another with which they defend. Vekic’s version is slightly more sword-and-sword — her forehand, particularly inside-out and on-the-rise, is more of a swinging axe, while her drop-shot is as precise as a scalpel.

Both were shaky throughout Saturday’s final, but the drop-shot in particular completely deserted her, with efforts in the first set dropping into the net. For most players, the drop-shot is a useful, but non-essential attacking shot. For Vekic, it is the most natural companion to her baseline aggression.

Her forehand, particularly inside-out (when hitting from the ad-court to the deuce-court) earns her so much time and fear from her opponents that they are forced to camp behind the baseline in expectation that it will come; this allows her to change grip and hit a shorter ball without even having it to be perfect.

Against Zheng, she just couldn’t make it work, despite one excellent example on the backhand side in the second set. One floaty, weak example was punished by Zheng on her way to breaking serve to lead 5-3, and to really rub it in, Zheng threw in a drop shot when serving out victory.

The Croatian struggled for feel (Igor Kralj/Pixsell/MB Media/Getty Images)

James Hansen

The statistic with a story?

It may be the most imperfect and subjective of all tennis statistics: the dreaded winners-to-unforced error ratio. After all, at the highest level, most errors have some degree of force involved with them.

The statisticians who decide whether an error is forced or not have generally never felt the weight of a professional ball on their strings. No matter how easy a shot may look, the opponent has to receive some credit if it goes awry.

That said, Vekic, whose game relies on using her power to hit the ball through the court, had an ugly ratio Saturday. She had just 13 winners against 30 unforced errors, plus another 15 errors that were supposedly forced by Zheng.

Again, Zheng gets plenty of credit for that.

She moved the ball around the court, especially on her serve, to prevent Vekic from digging in and swinging freely, but 10 against 30 is never going to be a winning combination.

Matt Futterman

What did Zheng Qinwen say after the final?

“Nothing can express my feelings right now… Every round was super emotional. I don’t feel anything, it’s just unreal.

“I was always hoping to get a medal for China, and finally I’ve made it. A gold medal. My country will be proud of me, I will be proud of myself.”

(MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP via Getty Images)

What did Donna Vekic say after the final?

“It’s a little bit disappointing right now, but for sure when the emotions settle I will be really happy. I am really happy.

“The whole week the whole country has been watching, so I’m really thankful.”

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(Top photo: Carl de Souza/AFP via Getty Images)