Michael Zheng (Chinese: 郑瑞 pinyin: Zhèng Ruì, born January 27, 2004) is an American professional tennis player. He has a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 88 achieved on 14 September 2026 and a doubles ranking of No. 490 reached in August 2025.
Early life Zheng was born to Joe Zheng and Mei. His parents emigrated from Hubei, China, to the United States. He was raised in Montville, New Jersey. Zheng attended Delbarton School, where he won the state singles tennis championship in 2021. For his senior year, he transferred to Dwight Global Online School in order to accommodate his travel demands for tennis.Zagoris, Adam. "N.J. native Zheng inspires young fans in U.S. Open qualifying loss", The Star-Ledger, August 22, 2024. Accessed August 10, 2025, via Newspapers.com. "The 20-year-old Zheng, a Montville native and former state champion from Delbarton, attracted hundreds of fans to his match and came within a hair of winning."Eckles, EJ. "Michael Zheng Captures NCAA Singles Tennis Championship", Delbarton School, November 25, 2024. Accessed August 10, 2025."The 2021 NJSIAA Boys Tennis Singles Champion during his junior year at Delbarton, Zheng left the school early to focus on his tennis career, a move that has clearly paid off."
College In 2025–26, Zheng was a senior playing tennis at Columbia University. In the 2022–23 season, his first year at Columbia, he became the first first-year student athlete at the school to be named an ITA All-American, in addition to being the first Ivy League tennis player to win Ivy League Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, and First-Team All-Ivy in singles and doubles all in the same season.
He represented Columbia at the 2023 NCAA tennis tournament in singles, where he was eliminated by Michigan's Ondřej Štyler in the Round of 16. In his sophomore season, Zheng reached the final of the 2024 NCAA Division I tennis men's singles championships, where he lost to Filip Planinšek of Alabama. In the start of his junior year, the NCAA decided to move up the individual NCAA tournaments to the fall season instead of the spring season. There he once again reached the final of the Division I tennis men's singles championships. On November 24, 2024, he defeated Ozan Baris of Michigan State to become the first NCAA singles champion from Columbia since 1906, and the first Ivy League NCAA singles champion since 1922. On November 23, 2025, Zheng defeated Trevor Svajda of SMU to become the first back-to-back NCAA champion since Steve Johnson in 2011 & 2012.
Career 2022: Juniors
Zheng reached the final of the Wimbledon boys' singles tournament in 2022, losing in the final to Mili Poljičak.
2023–25: Challenger titles In June 2023, Zheng reached his first ATP Challenger final at the 2023 Caribbean Open, losing to Kei Nishikori. In May 2025, Zheng reached the final of the 2025 Little Rock Challenger, losing to Patrick Kypson. In July, Zheng reached his first Challenger doubles final at the 2025 Cranbrook Tennis Classic with Theodore Winegar. In August, Zheng won his first Challenger title in Chicago, defeating Hsu Yu-hsiou in the final.
He then won two more Challenger titles at Columbus and Tiburon with a 15 matches win streak.
2026: Major, Masters debuts and three third rounds, top 100 Zheng made it through three rounds of qualifying matches, including a tight 4–6, 6–3, 7–6(12–10) three-set win over Lukáš Klein, to make the main draw at the 2026 Australian Open, his first main draw appearance at a Grand Slam. In the first round, he defeated Sebastian Korda in five sets, marking his first win at a Grand Slam main draw. Zheng made his Masters 1000 debut in Indian Wells after receiving a main draw wildcard.
He qualified for the 2026 French Open, making his main draw debut at Roland Garros. He also qualified and reached the third round at the 2026 Wimbledon Championships, on his debut, upsetting 26th seed, home favorite and British No. 1 Cameron Norrie and then fellow qualifier Nicolas Mejia.
At the 2026 Cincinnati Open Zheng reached the third round as a qualifier, on his debut at this Masters. At the US Open he reached a second consecutive Grand Slam third round as a wildcard, defeating lucky loser Yunchaokete Bu. As a result he reached the top 100 in the singles rankings at world No. 88, on 14 September 2026.
Performance timeline
Singles Tournament2023202420252026SRW–LWin%Grand Slam tournamentsAustralian OpenAAA2R0 / 11–1French OpenAAA1R0 / 10–1WimbledonAAA3R0 / 12–1US OpenQ2Q1Q23R0 / 12–1Win–loss0–00–00–05–40 / 45–4ATP Masters 1000 Indian Wells1R0 / 10–1Canada Open1R0 / 10–1Cincinnati Open3R0 / 12–1Career statisticsTournaments00090Overall win–loss0–00–00–08–98–90 / 9Year-end ranking533759188
ATP Challenger and ITF World Tennis Tour finals
Singles: 7 (4 titles, 3 runner-ups) LegendATP Challenger Tour (3–2)ITF WTT (1–1)Finals by surfaceHard (4–2)Clay (0–1)
ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfaceOpponentScoreLoss0–1Caribbean Open, Puerto RicoChallengerHard Kei Nishikori2–6, 5–7Loss0–2Little Rock Challenger, USChallengerHard Patrick Kypson1–6, 6–1, 5–7Win1–2Chicago Challenger, USChallengerHard Hsu Yu-hsiou6–4, 6–2Win2–2Columbus Challenger, USChallengerHard (i) Martin Damm3–6, 6–3, 7–5Win3–2Tiburon Challenger, USChallengerHard Tyler Zink6–4, 6–4
ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfaceOpponentScoreLoss0–1M15 Orange Park, USWTTClay Wu Yibing6–7(4–7), 5–7Win1–1M25 Southaven, USWTTHard Tyler Zink6–4, 7–6(7–3)
Doubles: 3 (1 title, 2 runner-ups) LegendATP Challenger Tour (0–2)ITF WTT (1–0)Finals by surfaceHard (1–2)Clay (0–0)
ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreLoss0–1Cranbrook Tennis Classic, USChallengerHard Theodore Winegar Hsu Yu-hsiou Huang Tsung-hao6–4, 3–6, [9–11]Loss0–2Chicago Challenger, USChallengerHard Theodore Winegar Mac Kiger Ryan Seggerman4–6, 6–3, [5–10]
ResultW–LDateTournamentTierSurfacePartnerOpponentsScoreWin1–0M25 Southaven, USWTTHard Lui Maxted Keshav Chopra Andres Martin6–2, 6–4
Junior Grand Slam finals
Singles: 1 (runner-up) ResultYearTournamentSurfaceOpponentScoreLoss2022WimbledonGrass Mili Poljičak6–7(2–7), 6–7(3–7)
References
External links