With elbow surgery putting her meteoric career rise on hold, Chinese tennis star Zheng Qinwen has embraced the layoff, using it to reset herself, physically and mentally, in order to scale greater heights with more consistency.

One month after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on her right elbow, Zheng, a super competitive athlete nicknamed "Fire" as a junior and known as "Queen Wen" now, has finally come to terms with the grueling nature of professional tennis — failure is an integral part of the job, and growing from pain is part of the elite game.

In a recent interview with China Media Group, the reigning Olympic champion opened up about her up-and-down season so far, her maturing mental game and the drive to win her first major.

"'Every inch of growth comes with a bit of pain.' That's a saying that has resonated with me recently," said Zheng, whose injury-plagued 2025 season was put on indefinite pause after a first-round defeat to Katerina Siniakova at Wimbledon.

As the pain in her surgically repaired elbow eases, the challenge of living with the mental and emotional scars of every disheartening loss remains a formidable one, Zheng noted.