Tennis News: Zheng Qinwen, Donna Vekic and Caroline Wozniacki

There is something going on between Zheng Qinwen and many other players on the WTA tour that tennis fans do not see and the situation is not good. During the Paris Olympics, the Chinese player defeated American Emma Navarro but Navarro told Zheng at the net after the match that she did not respect Zheng.

There was not much during the match that would seemingly cause the usually poised Navarro to be so upset at Zheng. Whatever was going on, and Navarro did not specify after the match, appeared to be stewing prior to the match itself. Zheng implied she was caught off-guard by the American's comments and said she was glad she was told so she could review how she was handling herself.

Zheng went on to defeat Donna Vekic in the Olympic final to win gold. After the match, however, Vekic spoke about how irritated she was by some things Zheng was doing. Specifically, when a spectator would move or make a noise when Vekic was serving, Zheng would hold up her racket to halt play. To be fair, this is something that WTA No. 1 Iga Swiatek has done for a number of years.

Donna Vekic and Zheng Qinwen are not friends and Caroline Wozniacki gets a wild card

Vekic said in her press conference, "She kept delaying the service. As soon as someone's voice was heard or someone moved in the audience. She took time-outs completely incorrectly. We cannot expect spectators to sit like statues. There are also a lot of controversial stories about her, but I won't talk about that now."

One can safely assume there are more stories to come about Zheng. Whatever the issues are, let's hope they get ironed out between the players soon.

In more tournament-based news, the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati, Ohio, will be held between August 12 through 19. Some of the players expected to appear at the Masters 1000 event are Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, Coco Gauff, and Iga Swiatek. The event will be hot, but with a lot of excellent tennis played.

Two players who were not sure they would be able to compete in Cincinnati received wild cards this week to enter the tournament, Caroline Wozniacki and Bianca Andreescu. Wozniacki made the quarterfinals in 2014. Andreescu has only played in the Western and Southern Open once and that was in 2021 when she lost in the second round.

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