China's Olympic champion makes triumphant return

Although not 100 percent recovered yet from right elbow surgery in July, Zheng showed little sign of rust on Saturday night as the reigning Olympic champion put on a full display of her aggressive game to beat Columbia's Arango, a world No 50 player, 6-3, 6-2 in 84 minutes at the sold-out Diamond Court in Beijing, making a strong statement of her return at the WTA 1000 tournament.

It was Zheng's first official match since she lost in the first round at Wimbledon to Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic on July 1, due to the nagging elbow injury that had cost her the lethal force in her serves and shots.

Apparently not at her peak yet, underscored by her three double faults and sub-par first-serve percentage, Zheng wielded her pinpoint forehand shots to dictate the play, converting three of four break points to defeat Arango for a second straight time, following a straight-sets win over the same opponent in the round of 64 at Roland Garros.

"Do you miss me? Cuz I miss you guys so much!" Zheng shouted to rousing reactions from a capacity crowd at the 15,000-seat central court after her win.

"I am really happy to play in front of my home crowd, especially coming from an injury and over two months without competition," said the current world No 9 and last year's semifinalist in Beijing.

"I just missed the feeling of competing against an opponent, missed the feeling of playing in front of my people."

Still working on a diligent rehab process before the tournament, Zheng confessed that China Open originally wasn't on her plan for the "China Swing", but it was the enthusiastic fan support during her pre-tournament practice sessions that made her want to pay them back by at least trying to play.

"I am not recovered to my full strength yet. But I really want to make it happen and appear on the court for all the fans. Match by match, I believe I will recover better during the tournament.

"It proved a right decision to play this match, although still carrying a little bit of pain," she said.

Zheng will play against No 27 Linda Noskova in the next round on Monday.

With three days to go before the week-long National Day holiday begins on Wednesday, the China Open has already set an all-time high single-day attendance of 45,000 on Saturday, mainly due to the surging popularity of Zheng.