On the night of September 3-4 Moscow time, the first quarter-final matches of the US Open were played. In both singles events, the men’s and women’s players from the lower halves of the draw took to the court. Two-time Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka, seeded number two, faced Paris 2024 Olympic champion Zheng Qingwen (7).
Sabalenka had problems in only one match out of four leading up to the quarter-finals. In the third round match against Ekaterina Alexandrova, the Belarusian had to come back from a 2:6, 6:1, 6:2 deficit. Zheng Qingwen, on the other hand, played three-set matches in three out of four cases, including in the second round against Erika Andreeva 6:7 (3:7), 6:1, 6:2. And in the fourth round, a new version of the Olympic final took place, where Zheng Qingwen again defeated Donna Vekic 7:6 (7:2), 4:6, 6:2.
Previously, Sabalenka and Zheng Qingwen met twice. Both meetings went to Arina. She won 6-1, 6-4 in the quarter-finals of the 2023 US Open and 6-3, 6-2 in the final of the 2024 Australian Open. “I really enjoy playing with her and I am looking forward to our match. I know she is one of the best hard-court tennis players. And I was waiting for this moment,” Tennis.com quotes Zheng Qingwen before the match.
Sabalenka won the first set 6-1, but the result in this case does not fully reflect what was happening on the court. In the first three games Zheng Qingwen fought almost the same as her opponent, but in the key plays the Belarusian was better. In the second game she made a break, and in the third she escaped a break point – in that game the rope played for Arina. In the sixth game Sabalenka scored a second break, after which she served to win the game from the third set point.
In the second game, Sabalenka’s advantage was already more noticeable. On her serve, she gave her opponent minimal opportunities – there was no talk of break points. As in the first set, Arina managed to break twice – in the first game and in the fifth. In the eighth game, the Belarusian closed the match with the second match point – 6:1, 6:2 in 1 hour and 14 minutes.
Sabalenka thus reached the US Open semi-finals for the fourth time in a row. In 2021 and 2022 she stopped at this stage, and in 2023 she reached the final. “Fast pace of the match? It works against someone like her. [Чжэн Циньвэнь]She is a reliable and aggressive player. It is always difficult to fight against her.
“Starting fast at the beginning of the match was a big help and gave me a lot of faith that I could do very well in this match and get this win. Zheng plays amazing tennis. It was very difficult for me to play with her,” Sabalenka said in a post-match on-court interview.
The match between Sabalenka and Zheng Qingwen was attended by 20-time Grand Slam champion Roger Federer. “Yes, I saw it, I saw it on the big screen. I’m almost sure he came to watch Tiafoe and Dimitrov, but I still thought: well, I have to show my best tennis, so that he likes me, I have to show my skills (laughs). Yes, it was a nice moment. It’s nice to see him here,” Arina added.
And Zheng Qingwen explained the defeat by finishing her round of 16 match late. “Of course it has a big impact. Especially I couldn’t sleep after finishing the match at 2:30am. It had an impact because I couldn’t exercise yesterday… Yesterday I felt awful. I couldn’t wake up. I wanted to play tennis, but I felt like I couldn’t do it. But of course I take into account that there are other players who finish very late.
“I can’t complain about anything because sometimes the schedule is like that. What time did you go to bed? Good question. I think around 4:30, probably around 5:00 in the morning,” the US Open press service quoted the Chinese woman as saying.
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In the men’s draw, Grigor Dimitrov (9) faced the home crowd favourite Francis Tiafoe (20). In the fourth round, Dimitrov defeated Andrei Rublev in a dramatic match: 6:3, 7:6 (7:3), 1:6, 3:6, 6:3. And Tiafoe stopped Alexei Popyrin, who had previously knocked out Novak Djokovic himself – 6-4, 7-6 (7-3), 2-6, 6-3.
In personal encounters, the advantage was on Dimitrov’s side: 3-1. In the last match played at Wimbledon 2023, the Bulgarian confidently won 6:2, 6:3, 6:2. Today Tiafoe took revenge. In the first set, the American never allowed his opponent to face break points. In the fifth game he took someone else’s serve, and in the ninth he took the game from the fourth set point 6:3.
In the second set, Tiafoe led 4-1 with a break, but Dimitrov broke back in the seventh game, after which, having recovered a break point, he equalized the score at 4-4. In the fifth game, Francis escaped the break point and eventually had to play the tie-break, where Grigor was a little more precise: 7:6 (7:5).
The third game was a carbon copy of the first set: there were no break points for Dimitrov and breaks for Tiafoe in the fifth and ninth games. And in the fourth set, the Bulgarian, with the score 4:1 in favour of her opponent, retired due to injury: 6:3, 6:7 (5:7), 6:3, 4:1 (rejection) in favour of Francisco in 3 hours 1 minute.
Sabalenka will play Emma Navarro in the semi-finals, and Tiafoe will play Taylor Fritz. Navarro defeated Paula Badosa in her quarter-finals and Fritz defeated Alexander Zverev.
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The final quarter-finals will take place at the US Open on Wednesday, September 4. The most anticipated match of the day is the match between the winner of the 2021 US Open Daniil Medvedev and the champion of the 2024 Australian Open Jannik Sinner. The match Jannik Sinner (Italy, 1) – Daniil Medvedev (Russia, 5) will take place on the night of September 4-5 and will start no earlier than 3:30 Moscow time. Follow all the events of the “Championship”.
