Qinwen Zheng won the 2024 Olympic gold medal, leaving Donna Vekic with silver and Iga Swiatek with bronze.
Two years have passed since Zheng stunned the gold medal favourite Swiatek en route to Olympic glory in Paris.
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But what’s happened to the three Olympic medallists since?
What’s happened to Qinwen Zheng, Donna Vekic and Iga Swiatek since the 2024 Olympics?
Qinwen Zheng
The Chinese star couldn’t have asked for a much better start to her 2024 season.
Zheng reached the Australian Open final in January, before winning Olympic gold in August.
And she continued to perform at the highest level through the remainder of the year, reaching the final of the first WTA Finals held in Saudi Arabia, ending 2024 as the world number five.
She enjoyed a solid start to her 2025 season, too, reaching several WTA quarter-finals, until she underwent elbow surgery after Wimbledon.
Zheng briefly returned later in the year at her home China Open, but retired from her third-round match and wasn’t seen again until 2026.
Still recovering from her elbow surgery, Zheng missed the first month of the 2026 season, including the Australian Open, where she had been a finalist two years earlier.
There were some signs of promise at the Sunshine Double events and the French Open warm-up tournaments, but things began to fall apart when she arrived in Paris.
Zheng lost in the first round of a major for the first time, suffering a 4-6, 0-6 defeat against the eventual finalist, Maja Chwalinska.
She then won just two matches on grass and most recently lost her opener in Washington against Alex Eala.
Just over two years since she had an Olympic gold medal wrapped around her neck, Zheng sits 123rd in the world rankings.
Official WTA Rankings
- 121. Dominika Salkova – 632 points
- 122. Sonay Kartal – 618 points
- 123. Qinwen Zheng – 610 points
- 124. Mary Stoiana – 603 points
- 125. Yue Yuan – 602 points
Donna Vekic
Vekic, like Zheng, was in fine form two years ago.
The Croat reached the Wimbledon semi-finals before picking up an Olympic silver medal.
There wasn’t much else to shout about post-Olympics, although Vekic did win three matches to qualify for the US Open fourth round.
Heading into the new year, she reached another Grand Slam fourth round, in Melbourne, but endured a much tougher season overall.
Vekic split from her coaches Pam Shriver and Sascha Bajin in 2025 and finished the year ranked 72nd in the world.
She did, however, bounce back in style this year, winning the Queen’s Club Championships to return to the world’s top 50.
It remains to be seen if she can build on that result, although the initial signs aren’t too positive, given Vekic hasn’t won a match since lifting the title (0-2).
Iga Swiatek
Some argue Swiatek hasn’t been the same since missing out on Olympic gold in Paris.
The Pole had won three consecutive French Opens and arrived at the Olympic Games as the favourite for the title, before losing to Zheng in the semis.
Swiatek hasn’t won a title on clay, her favourite surface, since.
Still, she has impressed elsewhere, winning Wimbledon in 2025, as well as the Cincinnati Open and the Korea Open to finish the year as world number two.
However, there has been little to celebrate for Swiatek in 2026.
After a poor start to the season, Swiatek replaced Wim Fissette with Francisco Roig, but the results haven’t improved.
She failed to reach the quarter-finals of the French Open and Wimbledon, and still hasn’t played a tour-level final this season.
Heading into the US swing, Swiatek sits eighth in the world rankings, but has fallen to 12th in the ‘Live WTA Race’.
Unless she wins the US Open or dominates the remaining WTA 1000 events, Swiatek will miss out on the WTA Finals, something that few would have believed possible just two years ago.
The six-time Grand Slam champion was once the best player in the women’s game, but you’d be hard pushed to find anyone backing her to win a seventh major title right now.
Every player who has won an Olympic medal in women’s singles
Since tennis returned to the Olympic calendar in 1988, 29 different women have won Olympic medals, including Serena Williams, Venus Williams, and Steffi Graf.
Women’s singles Olympic medallists
| Olympic Games | Gold medallist | Silver medallist | Bronze medallist |
| 2024 Paris | Qinwen Zheng (China) | Donna Vekic (Croatia) | Iga Swiatek (Poland) |
| 2020 Tokyo | Belinda Bencic (Switzerland) | Marketa Vondrousova (Czechia) | Elina Svitolina (Ukraine) |
| 2016 Rio | Monica Puig (Puerto Rico) | Angelique Kerber (Germany) | Petra Kvitova (Czechia) |
| 2012 London | Serena Williams (USA) | Maria Sharapova (Russia) | Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) |
| 2008 Beijing | Elena Dementieva (Russia) | Dinara Safina (Russia) | Vera Zvonareva (Russia) |
| 2004 Athens | Justine Henin (Belgium) | Amelie Mauresmo (France) | Alicia Molik (Australia) |
| 2000 Sydney | Venus Williams (USA) | Elena Dementieva (Russia) | Monica Seles (USA) |
| 1996 Atlanta | Lindsay Davenport (USA) | Arantxa Sanchez Vicario (Spain) | Jana Novotna (Czechia) |
| 1992 Barcelona | Jennifer Capriati (USA) | Steffi Graf (Germany) | Mary Joe Fernandez (USA)/Arantxa Sanchez Vicario (Spain) |
| 1988 Seoul | Steffi Graf (West Germany) | Gabriela Sabatini (Argentina) | Zina Garrison (USA)/Manuela Maleeva-Fragniere (Bulgaria) |
Only time will tell who will add their names to the list at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.