Olympic champ makes Tokyo semis

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Zheng Qinwen reached the Tokyo semifinals on Friday despite admitting to struggling for motivation after winning Olympic gold and receiving a hero’s welcome in her native China.

The top seed beat Canada’s Leylah Fernandez 6-0, 1-6, 6-3 to set up a final-four showdown with Russia’s number six seed Diana Shnaider.

Zheng became the first Chinese player to win Olympic singles tennis gold when she triumphed in Paris this summer.

She said her “life changed” as a result and she “couldn’t walk on the street” when she returned to play in China last month.

The 22-year-old is playing in a more sedate environment at the Pan Pacific Open in the Japanese capital and said it was “tough to find motivation.”

“Especially after I finished in China because I got big expectations, a lot of stress, a lot of pressure to play well in the Chinese events,” she said.

“I already made one mistake after Australia, I lost motivation and lost a couple of matches I should not lose,” she said, referring to reaching the Australian Open final in January.

“This time my team is trying to explain to me how important it is to keep the motivation up. If you are there in court, you need to fight 100 percent.”

Zheng looked set for a comfortable evening’s work when she took the first set without dropping a game against Fernandez.

She said that her concentration dropped in the second set, but she refocused to reach her sixth semifinal of a breakout year.

“I’m happy I got (had) two matches (so far) here because honestly my motivation wasn’t that high,” she said.

“But I’m still able to push myself and get the match.”