Qinwen Zheng issued a heartfelt apology to spectators at the WTA Finals in Saudi Arabia after battling past Elena Rybakina on Monday. The Chinese player secured her first win at the end-of-year tournament in Riyadh with a hard-fought victory over Rybakina in the Purple Group.

The 22-year-old is enjoying the best form of her short career so far and the world No 7 produced a fine performance to beat fifth seed Rybakina 7-6, 3-6, 6-1.

At one stage during the match, Zheng appeared to lose her cool with fans in the crowd and shouted in their direction as her emotions threatened to boil over. But she regained her composure to breeze past her Kazakh opponent in the third set.

Zheng, who initially did not realise she had won the match as she prepared to play another point, eventually was able to savour her success. But she started her on-court interview by first saying sorry to the fans.

“I say I apologise, in one moment my emotions weren’t there because I wasn’t totally under control,” Zheng said. “I’m so sorry that I shouted. I want to say thank you [to the fans] for continuing to support me.”

She added: “I’m really happy to win this match. I [have] never beat her [Rybakina] before. She’s one of the greatest players on the tour right now. She has a huge serve and great groundstrokes. I’m just happy today I gave my best.”

Zheng was then informed that she was ‘forgiven’ by the fans, who cheered her as she walked off court and she responded by waving in their direction.

By winning the match, she became only the second Chinese player after Li Na to win a WTA Finals match since the event began in 1972.

Zheng lost her opener to Aryna Sabalenka in a 6-3, 6-4 defeat, but showed her resilience against Rybakina to set up an enticing decider against Jasmine Paolini.

The Paris 2024 gold medallist has enjoyed a stellar year on the WTA Tour, winning 45 out of her 60 matches and claiming titles in Palermo and Tokyo in addition to her Olympic triumph.

She knows that she must win against Paolini on Wednesday to stand a chance of qualifying for the next stage of the tournament. But Zheng will have the psychological edge going into that particular tie after beating Paolini in all three of their previous meetings.

Zheng recorded a three-set victory against the Italian at the Wuhan Open in October, as well as getting the better of the world No 3 in Zhengzhou and Palermo in 2023.