"I used to cry a lot, cry more than an hour" - Zheng Qinwen on how her attitude towards tough defeats has changed

Zheng Qinwen recently let fans in on how she would often cry after tough losses during her teenage years.

Qinwen has recorded the best results of her career in 2024. The Chinese reached the final of the Australian Open against all odds, where she went down to defending champion and second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka. As a result of her Melbourne run, she made her debut in the top 10 WTA rankings at No. 7 in late January.

Although Zheng Qinwen has had mediocre results on the WTA Tour since then, she has chances of doing some damage during this year's claycourt season. The 21-year-old kicked off her campaign at this week's Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in style on Tuesday (April 16), beating Romanian veteran Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 6-3 to reach the second round of the WTA 500 tournament.

Despite having her work cut out in Stuttgart, the fifth seed still found some time for a candid conversation with Courtney Nguyen for WTA Insider on Monday. She spoke about how she transformed her approach to tough losses over the last few years, claiming that she learned to be in the present and not dwell on her past.

"Well, when I enter the tournament beginning and also when there was teenager time, I used to cry a lot. Honestly, cry a lot, just cry a lot, cry more than an hour," Zheng Qinwen said (6:52). "But after two years in the tour, I don't cry much like before because I realize one things is, 'Okay, what can you learn from the loss?'"

"And then, 'Tomorrow is another day. So keep the steady motion from the past. You have to live in the moment.' So this sentence helped me a lot to go more faster to move away from the loss."

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Zheng Qinwen - "If you don't work hard, you'll never get what you already want"

Zheng Qinwen hits a forehand at BNP Paribas Open 2024

During the interaction, Zheng Qinwen also shed light on some of the personality traits that helped her achieve her recent success. The 21-year-old believes that one must work hard without the promise of reward, even if the prospects of success aren't that high.

"As a tennis player, the first value is of course to work hard because if you don't work hard, you'll never get what you already want," Qinwen said (6:31). "But it doesn't mean if you work hard, you're going to get what you want, you know?"

"That's what confuses things. [It's hard to accept that we're] working so hard, but sometimes we don't get the result you want, and we need to accept, stand up and try again until we get what we really want. And most of the times, we don't get it. And then we have to face another loss and that's really tough, that's tennis for you.

Zheng Qinwen will face either German wildcard Laura Siegmund or fast-rising Marta Kostyuk for a place in the third round of the 2024 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix. She is projected to face World No. 3 Coco Gauff in the quarterfinals, provided the American wins her opener against American qualifier Sachia Vickery.