Zheng screams in referee’s face for no reason in Wuhan final defeat

Qinwen Zheng’s on-court behavior has sometimes divided opinion, but she was undoubtedly wrong in an incident during the 2024 Wuhan Open final.

No one can doubt the quality of Zheng’s game. The 22-year-old’s development throughout 2024 has been one of the most impressive on the WTA Tour, after achieving many memorable results.

Zheng had a surprising run to the Australian Open final earlier this year. After beating Dayana Yastremska in the semi-final, she lost to Aryna Sabalenka, who retained her title in Melbourne.

After a less successful few months, Zheng played spectacular tennis to win Olympic gold in women’s singles at Roland-Garros, including one of the biggest upsets of the season against four-time French Open champion Iga Swiatek.

Zheng also managed well the expectations of playing at home during the two WTA-1000 tournaments in China. She reached the semi-final of the China Open in Beijing before falling to Sabalenka in the final of the Wuhan Open.

These results give Zheng a great chance of qualifying for the year-end WTA Finals. Four more players secured their places during the Wuhan Open, but the Olympic gold medalist is in pole position to win the final spot.

However, some people also criticize Zheng for his behavior. She generally does not congratulate her opponent at the net during post-match handshakes after losses, and did not look Sabalenka in the eye after losing the final in Wuhan.

Zheng was also involved in a controversial incident in her Wuhan Open match against Leylah Fernandez, clashing with the Canadian’s father. The 22-year-old claimed he was distracting her, something Fernandez’s father denied.

It was difficult to assess who was right in that incident. On the other hand, Zheng’s actions towards a linesman at the final in Wuhan were completely unjustified, with the man involved being reprimanded without any valid reason.

As the video below shows, Sabalenka and Zheng scored an epic point at 4-2, 30-15 in favor of the Belarusian. It ended with Sabalenka hitting a beautiful lob that the home favorite was unable to recover.

Despite the linesman not being near her as she tried to put the lob back into play, Zheng turned around and screamed in the man’s face. To his credit, the linesman did not react and remained calm.

The Australian Open runner-up then pleaded her case to the referee, who correctly responded that the line judge was in the correct position throughout the point and could not be blamed for the 22-year-old’s loss of the point.

Some of the other major tournaments on the ATP and WTA Tours have automatic line call systems. This makes line judges unnecessary and decision makers feel that the automatic system reduces the number of errors by presenting a valid compensation.

However, sometimes the problem is players’ treatment of line judges and referees rather than the decisions made. Zheng’s actions towards the line judge simply doing his job were unacceptable and hopefully she apologized to him later for this behavior.

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