Zheng Qinwen's Olympic stunner vs. Iga Swiatek and more of the biggest WTA upsets of 2024

The 2024 tennis season was filled with noteworthy stories, breakthrough moments, and countless trophy lifts. But what were the best matches of the year that was?

We rolled the tape, and this week, TENNIS.com is counting down some of the best WTA matches of the past year (with our ATP picks to come next week). We're starting our countdown with five Cinderellas who rose to the occasion and authored the biggest upsets of the season.

5. Anna Blinkova def. Elena Rybakina, Australian Open R2

In a women's draw in Melbourne that was marked by upsets—only five Top 10 seeds reached the third round, the fewest since 1988—Anna Blinkova's second-round victory over 2023 Melbourne finalist and No. 3 seed Elena Rybakina wasn't just noteworthy in the context of the tournament, or the season on the whole.

It was also historic. Needing 10 match points, and saving six of her own, the then-world No. 57 won the longest singles tiebreak in Grand Slam history to finish off the 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(20) win.

The 93-minute third set was a match of its own, and earned Blinkova her best career win by ranking over the woman who was, at the time, the prohibative tournament favorite after finishing as runner-up in 2022 and authoring a sweeping start to a season that eventually became complicated.

Rybakina was down a break three times in the final set, but each time she rallied. Blinkova served for the win twice and had two match points at 6-5, but Rybakina's resilience set the stage for a deciding tiebreak, played to 10 points in Melbourne since 2019.

The one between Blinkova and Rybakina more than doubled that margin, lasting more than a half hour. The 42-point clincher passed the 38-point tiebreaks played by Lesia Tsurenko and Ana Bogdan at Wimbledon in 2023, and by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Andy Roddick 20-18 at the 2007 Australian Open.

Read more: The Australian Open has been a showcase for the high-pressure genius of the 10-point tiebreaker

"This day I will remember for the rest of my life," Blinkova said post-match inside Rod Laver Arena, calling it "the best day of my life so far."

She'll remember it, and tennis' all-time annals will too.

4. Olga Danilovic def. Danielle Collins, Roland Garros R2

Six years ago, Serbian left-hander Olga Danilovic, the daughter of one of the country's most famous basketball player, became the first player born after 2000 to win a WTA singles title—an achievement that looked, for all the world, like it would be the first step towards a long and fruitful career on the WTA tour.

Injuries, and inconsistent playing patterns, meant that prodigious beginning never quite materialized into something more. But in the spring, the now-23-year-old reminded folks, or taught them, just how much talent she has by storming to the second week of Roland Garros as a qualifier.

That run of six straight victories, which was ended in the fourth round by 2019 Paris finalist Marketa Vondrousova, included a second-round upset of the red-hot Danielle Collins, who had, at the time, won 23 of her last 26 matches—including a thrilling triumph over Danilovic weeks prior in Madrid.

In Madrid, the Serb led by a set and a break before Collins stormed back, and she reversed the result in almost identical fashion in Paris. Down a set and 5-3, Danilovic won six straight games to eventuall turn the match around in two hours and 35 minutes, eight minutes shorter than her and Collins' Madrid installment.

The pair tallied the same number of winners, 34, though Danilovic committed seven fewer unforced errors, 31 to 38. Just nine of her errors came in the decider to help Danilovic match what was her career-best major result (she'd better it with a three-hour epic against Donna Vekic in the next round) and give her a first career Top 10 win since her breakout as a 17-year-old.

"I know I can do a lot," Danilovic said, who has won at least one set in four of her five career matches against the Top 10. "I also know ... [what] I am capable of, but let's see. It's step by step."

After finishing the year on the cusp of the Top 50, what will Danilovic's next steps be in 2025?

3. Mirra Andreeva def. Aryna Sabalenka, Roland Garros QF

Aryna Sabalenka lost just one match at a Grand Slam in 2024, and it came at the hands of the WTA's highest-ranked teenager, Mirra Andreeva.

Andreeva was already a known quantity before stepping onto Court Philippe Chatrier for her first career Grand Slam quarterfinal, to both tennis fans and to Sabalenka. The 2023 WTA Newcomer of the Year had already reached the fourth round at Grand Slams twice since she played her first major as a pro 12 months earlier, also in Paris, and the youngster had already toppled a Grand Slam champion, Victoria Azarenka, earlier in the fortnight in a dramatic, rain-delayed affair that ended past 1 a.m.

A 7-5, 6-2 win over newly-minted Frenchwoman Varvara Gracheva, where Andreeva creatively channeled the partisan crowd, put her into her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. But despite Andreeva's undeniable talent, the figure of Sabalenka loomed large in front of her.

In two prior matches against Sabalenka, both on clay in Madrid, Andreeva had won a combined nine games. Sabalenka also came into the match 8-0 in her career in major quarterfinals, and on a 22-set winning streak at majors after lifting her second Australian Open trophy in January.

But that's why they play the match: "My goal was to win more games than I won in Madrid," Andreeva admitted after what became a nearly two-and-a-half hour battle.

She did that, and more: The 17-year-old showed maturity and mettle beyond her years in a stunning 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-4 victory to become the youngest Grand Slam semifinalist since Martina Hingis at the 1997 US Open. That, coupled with an off-kilter performance by an ailing Sabalenka, who later admitted to battling a stomach bug, helped Andreeva make recent history.

2. Yulia Putintseva def. Iga Swiatek, Wimbledon R3

After another dominant run through the clay-court season, where she won trophies in Madrid, Rome and at Roland Garros, Iga Swiatek once again faced a familar specter (the grass-court season), with a familiar refrain: What was standing between her, alaready a bonafide Hall of Fame player at just 23, and a deep run at Wimbledon? In five appearances at Wimbledon, the five-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek had only reached the fourth round twice.

"For sure it's a huge challenge," Swiatek admitted after a fourth romp to the title in Paris. "If I would lose here earlier, maybe I would be able to play two more weeks on grass and then be a better grass-court player.

"But if I [have to] choose, I love playing on clay. So, I'm not going to give up that. Ever."

She couldn't answer it in 2024, as she was bundled out of SW19 by the unseeded Yulia Putintseva, who rebounded from a first-set blowout to stun Swiatek and put an end to her 21-match winning streak.

It was just the fourth time since the start of 2023 that Swiatek had lost after winning the first set.

Putintseva, who came into the fortnight unseeded, had her own challenges with the green stuff in her career, but came into SW19 with more surface time than Swiatek: The mercurial Kazakh, as part of a resurgent season, won her third career WTA singles title, and first on grass, weeks earlier in Birmingham. She joked afterwards that she might be the WTA's newest grass-court specialist.

But what Putintseva is, seriously, is an all-surface threat, and her ability to manipulate speeds and spins befuddled Swiatek in the second and third sets of the 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 stunner.

The at-the-time world No. 1 made 38 unforced errors compared to Putintseva's 15, and by one stage in the third set, Swiatek had tallied 28 forehand miscues to Putintseva's two.

1. Zheng Qinwen def. Iga Swiatek, Paris Olympics SF

While figuring out grass courts is a goal for Swiatek for the long-term, one of her short-term goals coming into 2024 was to win an Olympic medal. Swiatek's father, Tomasz, competed in rowing at the Olympics for Poland, and after Swiatek was bundled out of her first Games in the second round three years ago, she left Tokyo in tears.

With the 2024 Paris Olympics being held on Swiatek's favorite surface, at her favorite venue of Roland Garros, she was ready for redemption. It was safe to say that there might not have been a bigger pre-tournament favorite anywhere in recent memory.

But Zheng Qinwen had other ideas. Though she was winless aganst Swiatek in six prior matches (though she'd won three sets), all previous history can be tossed aside when adding the unique pressures that come with wearing one's national colors.

Read the match report: Zheng Qinwen shocks Iga Swiatek, surges into Olympic gold medal match in Paris

After Swiatek survived an injured Danielle Collins in the quarterfinals, where the American took a verbal jab at Swiatek after retiring in the third set, she never really got going against Zheng. After China's top player, and the eventual gold medalist, raced through the first set, Zheng rallied from a 0-4 deficit in the second and won six of the last seven games to close out the match, 6-2, 7-5 and assure herself of a spot on the podium.

Swiatek, meanwhile, was once again left emotional in the aftermath of an Olympic defeat.

"I just blew it," Swiatek said, pointing to a "hole" in her backhand and inability to overcome the tension as chief reasons for the upset.

The Pole did bounce back to defeat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova for the bronze medal, shaking off the disappointment to make history for her country in the process.