A TWO-time winner in Palermo and an Olympic gold medalist in Paris, Chinese world number seven Qinwen Zheng can now add a home continent title to her CV after triumphing in Tokyo today. The top seed at the Pan Pacific Open was able to fend off a determined Sofia Kenin in straight sets, 7-6 6-3 for her maiden WTA 500 title.

The result was one better than her effort in Wuhan where she went down to now world number one Aryna Sabalenka in the final, but against Kenin, Zheng was able to get through a nail-biting first set tiebreaker before winning in an hour and 53 minutes.

A first time head-to-head, Zheng has produced a career-best year in 2024, moving to a 41-16 record with her Tokyo win, and collecting her first title outside of Palermo on Tour. Kenin has five titles to her name, but none since her breakout year of 2020 where she won the Australian Open and Lyon, while also reaching the Roland Garros final.

Ankle injuries have curtailed her young career to-date, but now the 25-year-old is starting to play consistently on Tour. Though the wins have not been frequent for a player of her talent, the Russian-born American representative strung together four consecutive victories in the Japanese capital. Those wins included scalps of seeds Daria Kasatkina, Katie Boulter and Xinyu Wang.

Zheng has always threatened to piece together an unbreakable performance, and while her Pan Pacific Open final still only saw a 59 per cent first serve efficiency, she put down 16 aces and won an elite 38 of 41 first serve points (93 per cent) to make life difficult for Kenin. Zheng still won 50 per cent of her second serve points and saved the only break point she faced.

For the American, she was still solid with a 64 and 59 per cent success off her first and second serve, while batting away seven of eight break points. Unfortunately for the world number 155, that one loss ot serve was all it took for the world number seven to secure the victory. However Kenin’s run to the final did aid in her rising an impressive 67 spots, back into the Top 100 at 88th in the world.

“I really appreciate that I’m able to fight through and be the champion in Tokyo,” Zheng said post-match. “This is the one I wanted to get when I was 19 years old. I fight so hard, but I didn’t, I lost in the [2022] final. So this year, I’m just really happy.”