Zheng Qinwen was hardy short on motivation when she arrived in Paris to compete in her first Olympic Games.

This was the event her father had taught her was even more important than the Grand Slam tournaments; the tennis title that no Chinese player, not even Li Na, had won in singles.

But as the matches and the hours on the red clay began to pile up, Zheng searched for more inspiration. She found it in a Chinese athlete who made an Olympic breakthrough under great pressure: Liu Xiang, who became the first Asian to win the men’s 110-meter hurdles, beating the field at the 2004 Games in Athens.

“In the past few days, to be honest with you, I have watched this video many times to motivate myself,” Zheng said.

When Liu won his gold, he was 21 years old, the same age as Zheng in Paris. And Zheng said that parallel only added to her belief that this was her time.

On Saturday, she walked on to Philippe Chatrier Court and proved it: keeping her cool and winning the women’s singles title with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Donna Vekic of Croatia.

It was not always impeccable tennis, but Zheng’s victory, which made her the first Chinese tennis player to win a singles gold or any Olympic medal, was a masterclass in composure and rising to the moment.

That was quite a contrast, in her own mind, with her lopsided loss in this year’s Australian Open final to Aryna Sabalenka.

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“I had a lot of nerves,” Zheng said of that 6-3, 6-2 defeat in Melbourne in her first Grand Slam final. “I feel my legs were super heavy. I couldn’t perform 50 percent of my level. But this final was different.”

She used that traumatic Australian experience and her deep connection with the Olympics to settle herself on Saturday with the gold medal on the line.

“It’s because of this calmness and patience that I was able to get the victory,” she said.

Zheng made it to the final the hard way.

She had to save a match point against Emma Navarro in the third round and had to rally from 1-4 down in the third set in the quarter-finals against an inspired Angelique Kerber, the former No. 1 who was playing her final tournament.

Above all, Zheng had to rally from a 0-4 deficit in the second set of the semi-finals to defeat No. 1 Iga Swiatek for the first time in seven matches. Swiatek, the overwhelming favorite for the gold, has been Zheng’s nemesis.

“Against Iga, I felt a lot of strength inside me,” Zheng said. “If I needed to stay three hours and fight and run, I feel I can do it. And in the final I jumped on the court, and I know exactly what I have to do. I have every shot and know every answer. I knew in the worst case, I’m going to fight like I did every other match.

“I know if you talk about shots, I have better shots than Vekic. I know it. But the final is not just about shots.”

“Kerber has worse shots than Serena, but she beat Serena in Slam finals,” Zheng said of Kerber’s victories over Williams in the 2016 Australian Open and 2018 Wimbledon finals.

For Zheng, the key is “mental strength”, and the Olympic spirit helped provide it as she watched Liu Xiang winning gold and watched other Chinese athletes prospering in other events during the first week of the Paris Games.

“I see them winning gold, silver and bronze medals for China,” she said. “And I want to be one of them.”

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Vekic had reached the final the hard way as well: defeating former U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu and, more surprisingly, reigning U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff, before saving a match point in her nearly three-hour victory over Marta Kostyuk in the quarter-finals.

At the French Open earlier this year, Vekic, 28, had briefly considered stepping away from the game, but she rebounded on the grass courts, reaching the final in Bad Homburg and her first semi-final at Wimbledon, where she lost a three-set thriller (and heartbreaker) against Jasmine Paolini of Italy.

She had low expectations when she and her coach Nikola Horvat returned to Roland Garros for the Games.

“Wimbledon, I play well on grass, so it was not that surprising to me,” Vekic said. “But making the finals on clay, I did not expect that, that’s for sure.”

All the more so because of how she felt after Wimbledon.

“I had so much pain everywhere I was debating going to the Olympics, because I thought with these conditions, there’s no way I can win a medal,” she said. “Pain in my arm, in my ankle. I was sick. Everything was happening all at once. When we came here, our flight was canceled, and we arrived late. Everything was going wrong, and the first practice I told my coach I am coughing so bad that I can’t make two shots in a row. I said, ‘What are we doing here?’”

Now she and Horvat have their answer: the first Olympic singles medal for a Croatian woman (Goran Ivanisevic won a men’s bronze in 1992 on the red clay in Barcelona).

“I definitely have given it all,” Vekic said.

It looked, from the outside, like she did not have that much left to give. This was a tighter match than the scoreline indicates, but Vekic seemed a little slower, a little less precise and a little less consistent than she is at her best, and her best would have come in very handy against Zheng.

“Overall, Donna was just a little below par,” said Pam Shriver, a former Olympic gold medalist in doubles for the United States who is one of Vekic’s coaches. “Donna didn’t serve as well. Her service percentage was not high enough. I thought Zheng played a really good match. Great quality. She didn’t throw in that many free points to Donna, and with the depth and proximity to the lines, you could see why she’s a top 5 player. I know she’s not quite there yet, but let’s face it: finals of the Australian Open and Olympic champion. She’s one to watch.”

Despite its prestige, the Olympic tournament offers no prize money or ranking points. But victory will certainly boost Zheng’s profile and status in China. She won the Asian Games singles title last year and has now gone a big step higher. Her results on the WTA Tour have been inconsistent, but she believes this breakthrough in Paris will have a knock-on effect.

“I think it will help me relax,” she said.

She also hopes it will have an impact on future generations of Chinese youngsters, just as Li Na’s two Grand Slam singles titles had an impact on her.

“I would say to them, dream big,” Zheng said. "Please be brave enough to dream big."