Zheng Qinwen’s father has claimed he’s responsible for installing a winning mentality in the tennis player as the controversial ‘tiger parenting’ method is questioned.
On July 21, Zheng made history by becoming China’s first Olympic tennis singles gold medalist.
The 21-year-old beat 27-year-old Donna Vekić in a 6-2, 6-3 match and later told the press she hoped the win would appease her strict father.
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"I feel like finally I can be able to say to my family, say to my father, 'Come on'," she explained. "Because I just made history."
But how has Zheng’s father contributed to her success and what is the tiger parenting method he employs?
Who is Zheng Qinwen?
Zheng is a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tennis player born in the Hubei Province of China on October 8, 2002.
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She’s currently ranked seventh in the world—a singles career high— and is coached by former men’s star Pere Riba, 36.
This year, she’s clinched titles at the Zhengzhou Open, The Palermo Ladies Open and the 2024 Paris Olympics and reached the final of the Australian Open.
What does Zheng Qinwen say about her upbringing?
The sportswoman has previously said her family made ‘big sacrifices’ for her to excel at tennis from a young age.
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“I think I cannot do it without them because they really make some important decisions for me in my tennis career,” she explained in an interview with Tennis.com. “For example, they make me go out to see the world very early,.
“They support me, they did a big sacrifice for my tennis, and really, thank you for them. Sometimes you have to be long distance. My father, I didn't see him for more than one year.”
What did her father say about the tennis player’s childhood?
Zheng’s father has claimed he’d been ‘critical’ of his daughter since she started crawling.
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Speaking to a local new station, he said: “On the first day she was crawling on the ground, I had already instructed her, that she should crawl faster than others. You need to be critical of children.”
Moreover, he claimed he’d been ‘instilling a certain kind of spirit’ in Zheng so that she could play tennis successfully.
“You must do it to the pinnacle of human achievement since tennis is the strong suit of Europeans and Americans, not Asians,” he explained.
It’s said that the dad also banned snacks and fizzy drinks from Zheng’s diet, as per the South China Morning Post.
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Despite the Chinese star asking her father to afford her a break, it seems as if she’s not allowed to rest on her laurels just yet.
“My daughter has achieved her first goal, and she has bigger dreams to accomplish in the future,” the proud dad continued.
What is tiger parenting?
Zheng’s father’s critical parenting style is extremely similar to ‘tiger parenting’.
The term was coined by American author and law professor Amy Chua and is synonymous with families who have high aspirations for their kids.
According to Chua, tiger parenting owes its existence to the belief that ‘academic achievement reflects successful parenting’.
Therefore the parenting style is synonymous with emphasising academic achievement and raising high-achieving children.
What are the criticisms of tiger parenting?
According to licensed therapist John M. Kim tiger parenting can cause anxiety and depression in children subjected to the method.
“The anxiety is from the fear of not being good enough in the future,” he explained. “The depression from the discouragement of not having achieved enough in the past. Shame, as it turns out, will more often than not sabotage rather than support a person’s success—when success is defined more broadly as emotional, relational, and career thriving.”
Moreover, he added that parents employing this method just want their children to ‘succeed and live a happy life’ but it is one they have ‘defined based on the culture they have grown up in’.
Ella Scott