Zheng Qinwen actually lost "not unfairly". All Chinese players were eliminated. After the controversial penalty, they were completely different.
This was a game full of "accidents" - first the referee's decision caused controversy, and then the rain disrupted the situation. In the early morning of June 2nd, Beijing time, in the third round of the women's singles at the 2024 French Open, Chinese player Zheng Qinwen dragged the game into a tiebreaker after falling behind 2-5 in the final set, but in the end she still won 6-10 in the tiebreak. Unfortunately, they lost to Avanisian with a big score of 1-2 and missed the top 16 of women's singles.
During the game, the dispute between Zheng Qinwen and the referee became a watershed in the direction of the game. Zheng Qinwen finally lost 6-3, 3-6 and 6-7 and missed the top 16 of the French Open. So far, all Chinese players have been eliminated from the French Open singles competition.
After the game, she expressed confusion about the referee's controversial penalty in the second set, but believed that this was not the main reason for the loss. She needed to improve her success rate in volleys and volleys.
Zheng Qinwen won a dream start to the game but ushered in a turning point in the second set. After easily taking a 2:0 lead, a misjudgment occurred in Zheng Qinwen's serve in the fourth game: the referee on duty judged an out-of-bounds ball from his opponent as a score. Since the French Open did not use the Eagle Eye system for law enforcement, Zheng Qinwen's appeal was unsuccessful. She felt helpless and almost cried. Affected by the referee's wrong decision, Zheng Qinwen lost the second set at a critical moment. Subsequently, the score was tied at 1-1 and the game entered the final set. Zheng Qinwen still failed to adjust his condition and fell into a trough after being broken.
In the third set, Zheng Qinwen's condition improved, but the referee suspended the game due to the increasingly heavy rain.
The game resumed more than four hours later, and at this time Avanisyan seemed to be in better condition, quickly leading 5:2 and entering his service-winning game. In a desperate situation, Zheng Qinwen broke out again. She won 4 games in a row with breaks and guarantees, but exceeded the score by 6:5. Subsequently, Avanixiang successfully held serve, and the two sides entered the final set to tie the tenth. In the tenth tie, after a 6:6 tie, Zheng Qinwen lost 4 points in a row, and finally lost this fierce battle with twists and turns at 6:10.
In this game, Zheng Qinwen's performance before and after the controversial penalty was completely different. Despite this, Zheng Qinwen said after the game that this was not the main reason for his loss: "After the misjudgment occurred, it did affect me a few points, but it was not the reason why I lost the game. If there had been no misjudgment, I might have The game can be won, but it’s hard to say. In fact, I didn’t think about this ball anymore after the game, I just looked forward.”
"What I couldn't accept at the time was that I didn't expect that such a low-level mistake would appear in a major championship, and the ball mark was obviously there, and the referee pointed out a non-existent ball spot. It is true that everyone makes mistakes, but This referee's mistake is amazing," Zheng Qinwen said.
Technical statistics after the game showed that although Zheng Qinwen hit twice as many aces and winning points as his opponents in this game, he also made nearly twice as many unforced errors as his opponents, up to 57 times, and 7 double faults. Opponents are zero. In terms of first-serve goal rate and break-serve conversion rate, they both lag behind their opponents. From this point of view, Zheng Qinwen is still far away from his best condition and from the top players.
However, the impact of the controversial penalty on her also exists objectively. In fact, referee misjudgments occur frequently, especially on clay courts. These controversial penalties may change the direction of the game and lead to unfair results. Players have different ways of responding to this. Some choose to communicate actively, while others use violent protests. There have been widespread calls for the use of electronic hawk-eye technology, but it remains unimplemented in some top competitions. For high-level events like the French Open, correctly solving the penalty problem is still an urgent problem that needs to be solved.
