Preview WTA China Open Final | Zheng Qinwen bids to make history as Mirra Andreeva chases third WTA 1000 title

Mirra Andreeva and Zheng Qinwen meet in the China Open final on Sunday in Beijing, with the singles final scheduled to start no earlier than 7:30 p.m. local time. It pairs the tour's leader in match wins this season with a former world No. 4 who spent the summer outside the top 100 after elbow surgery, and whose run through the draw has been one of the stories of the autumn.

Andreeva, the No. 4 seed, reached her fifth final of 2026 by beating Nikola Bartunkova 6-2, 6-2 in 1 hour and 14 minutes, two days after she held off Ekaterina Alexandrova in two tie-breaks. Zheng, a wild card, beat Elise Mertens 7-5, 6-2 on Saturday to become the first Chinese player to reach the China Open final since the tournament began in 2004.

Chinese players were 0-7 in semifinals here before her. With Elena Rybakina, Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff all gone before the final weekend, the title is the biggest prize left in Beijing, and for Andreeva it carries more than 1,000 points: it can decide whether her year-end No. 1 bid stays alive.

Andreeva will move to a career-high No. 3 in the rankings on Monday whatever happens, and she has already qualified for the WTA Finals in Indian Wells. Her 50 match wins this season are the most on tour, tied with Jessica Pegula, and she is the youngest player to reach that mark since Caroline Wozniacki in 2009.

She leads the tour in break points converted, with 301, the first player past 300 this year, and 25 of them have come in Beijing. Her quarterfinal against Alexandrova was the closest match of her week: she needed two tie-breaks, after Alexandrova came back from 4-1 down in the second set and from 5-3 down with Andreeva serving for the match.

This is her fifth final of 2026, after titles at Adelaide, Linz and Roland Garros and a runner-up finish in Madrid, a total that ties her with Rybakina, Sabalenka and Pegula. At WTA 1000 level she is 2-1 in finals: she won Dubai and Indian Wells in 2025 and lost the Madrid final to Marta Kostyuk. After dropping the opening set against Yuan Yue in her first match in Beijing, she has won 10 straight sets.

The WTA Race gives Sunday's final added significance. Unlike Rybakina and Sabalenka, Andreeva has no points to defend at the WTA Finals because she narrowly missed out on qualification last year. The Race, which counts only points earned during the 2026 season, therefore provides a clearer picture of what she can still achieve before the end of the year.

If Andreeva wins the title, she will move into second place in the Race, within 800 points of Rybakina. She would then have another opportunity to close the gap at the Wuhan Open, the next WTA 1000 tournament, which begins in a few days and will take place without the Kazakh.

In simple terms, winning on Sunday would be a major step towards putting Andreeva in contention for the year-end No. 1 ranking. Rybakina is virtually assured of remaining at the top of the official rankings for at least the next several weeks, but Andreeva could still have a significant say in the final outcome of the season at the WTA Finals.

Zheng's route to the final has been the longest and one of the hardest-earned runs of the week. She reached a career-high No. 4 in June 2025 before undergoing surgery on her right elbow on July 18. She briefly returned during the Asian swing but withdrew again after suffering another injury.

She missed the Australian Open in January, lost in the first round of Roland Garros to qualifier Maja Chwalińska and also exited in the opening round at Wimbledon. By mid-June, she had fallen to No. 160 in the world.

Zheng was around No. 121 before the US Open and had to come through qualifying to reach the main draw. New York changed her season. She beat Madison Keys after trailing 5-0 in the third set, then defeated Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-3 after trailing 5-0 in the opening set. She reached the quarterfinals for the third time in her career before losing to Rybakina in three sets despite winning the first.

That run lifted her from No. 121 to No. 52. Her Beijing campaign has now taken her much further: reaching the final guarantees that she will climb to No. 28 in the live rankings, while winning the title would move her to No. 23.

Beijing has also demanded a great deal physically. Zheng needed nearly three hours to beat compatriot Shi Han in the first round. She has spent 13 hours and 33 minutes on court, the most of any player at a single tour-level event this season, and has hit 219 winners, also a 2026 high. Thirteen of her first 21 wins this season came in deciding sets. She reached the quarterfinals after four consecutive three-set victories, although her latest matches against Elina Svitolina and Mertens were both straight-set wins.

Her record in finals is mixed. Zheng has four WTA titles, having won Palermo in 2023 and 2024, Zhengzhou in 2023 and Tokyo in 2024, in addition to her Olympic gold medal in Paris. Her only previous WTA 1000 final came at Wuhan in 2024, when she lost to Sabalenka in three sets. She also lost to Sabalenka in the 2024 Australian Open final, 3-6, 2-6.

The two players have met once before. Zheng won their 2024 China Open quarterfinal 5-7, 6-0, 6-4, recovering from a set down against a 17-year-old Andreeva. At the time, Zheng was an established top-10 player, while Andreeva was still climbing the rankings.

Two years later, they meet in very different circumstances. Andreeva arrives as the No. 4 seed, with the most match wins on tour and a year-end No. 1 race to pursue. Zheng, meanwhile, has worked her way back from outside the top 100 after a lengthy injury layoff.

Her performances in Beijing and New York have demonstrated that she can still beat elite opponents, with victories over Svitolina in Beijing and Swiatek at the US Open. The main question is whether she can recover sufficiently from a physically demanding week to maintain that level in the final.

For Andreeva, the match offers a chance to win her third WTA 1000 title and first of 2026, adding to her Roland Garros triumph and keeping her in contention for the year-end No. 1 ranking. For Zheng, victory would cap a remarkable comeback that began in US Open qualifying and make her the first Chinese player to win the China Open singles title.