There is a troubling sickness at the heart of this year’s US Open, and nobody in the media wants to talk about it. Over the last twelve days, we have been subjected to a narrative of triumph, resilience, and extraordinary grit surrounding China’s Zheng Qinwen. We are supposed to applaud the fact that she has reached the quarter-finals. We are supposed to marvel at her tennis. But where the rest of the press corps sees a heroic underdog story, I see a disturbing pattern of psychological warfare that has absolutely no place in a civilised sport.
On Friday, Madison Keys—a proud American, playing on American soil—did everything right. She went out there in the final set and built a commanding, flawless 5-0 lead. She did the honest, blue-collar work of winning five consecutive tennis games. She was one game away from victory. And how did Zheng repay that effort? By suddenly deciding to try. The Olympic gold medallist reeled off seven consecutive games to steal the match, leaving Keys entirely bewildered. It was a mugging in broad daylight, perpetrated by a player who clearly could have won those earlier games but simply chose not to, preferring instead to harvest an American's hope for her own sick amusement.
Then, as if to prove the cruelty was the point, she did the exact same thing two days later to Iga Swiatek.
Swiatek is a six-time grand slam champion. She is the world number one. You do not invite royalty into your house, offer them a 5-0 lead in the opening set, and then rip the rug out from under them in front of twenty-thousand screaming New Yorkers. It is fundamentally indecent. Swiatek built that lead under the assumption that they were engaged in a competitive sporting event. She expended energy. She formulated tactics. To discover, midway through the set, that she was merely a prop in Zheng’s performance art is the kind of trauma that ends careers.
Back in my day, we had a word for letting your opponent build a massive, insurmountable lead before systematically dismantling their entire sense of self-worth on national television: showboating. If Jimmy Connors or John McEnroe wanted to beat you 7-5, they did it like gentlemen. They won a game, you won a game, they won a game. They didn't spot you five games just to see the light leave your eyes when they took it all away.
What we are witnessing here is a grotesque abuse of load management. While Swiatek and Keys were out there sweating, grinding, and exerting themselves to build their 5-0 leads, Zheng was essentially resting. She took five games off. She allowed her opponents to tire themselves out carrying the emotional burden of being in the lead, only to swoop in fresh at the end to collect the glory. It is quiet quitting, plain and simple, and it is a slap in the face to the fans who paid top dollar to see two women try for the entire match, not just the final twenty minutes.
It is fundamentally unsporting to allow another woman to believe she is dominating a grand slam match, only to reveal you were simply letting her punch herself out.
I was up in the booth during the fourth round, watching the eye test fail in real-time. I spoke with several former greats who were equally disgusted. When a player goes down 5-0, there is a social contract that dictates they must quietly fold, pack their rackets, and attend the postgame presser to offer bland platitudes about needing to serve better. Zheng is tearing up that contract. She is treating a 5-0 deficit not as a death sentence, but as a warm-up.
Think of the collateral damage. Think of the broadcast partners. At 5-0, the television networks are already queuing up the commercials. The commentators have already written their closing thoughts on Swiatek’s dominant form. The graphics packages are rendering. And then Zheng decides to ruin everyone’s evening by extending the set for another forty-five minutes. It is selfish behaviour from a player who clearly lacks the intangibles required to just win a match in straight, boring sets.
The locker room is terrified. I have spoken to coaches who are actively instructing their players to avoid winning games against Zheng at all costs. The strategy going forward is clear: if you find yourself up 3-0 against her, you must immediately double-fault until the score is tied, lest you trigger the trap. The fear is palpable. Nobody wants to be the next victim to be lured into the 5-0 kill zone.
We are currently exploring an emergency rule change where, if a player reaches a 5-0 lead, the chair umpire can legally stop the match to protect them from whatever Zheng is planning to do next.
We cannot allow this to become the new normal. Tennis is a game of honour, of momentum, and of respecting the scoreboard. If Zheng Qinwen truly wants to be remembered as a champion, she needs to look deep inside herself and find the decency to start trying in the first game of the match.
Until then, my advice to whoever faces her in the quarter-finals is simple. If you win the coin toss, defer. If you hold serve to go up 1-0, forfeit the next game. And if, god forbid, you look up and see that you are leading 5-0, do the only safe thing left to do: shake the umpire's hand, walk off the court, and run for your life.