NEW YORK, Sept 6 \u2014 Zheng Qinwen won the last seven games to stun Madison Keys and reach the US Open last 16 in a day of upsets that dented American hopes yesterday at Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n
Fourth-seeded Coco Gauff battled through in straight sets, but Americans were hard hit with ninth-seeded Taylor Fritz and 2025 finalist Amanda Anisimova following Keys out the door.<\/p>\n
Fifth-seeded French Open finalist Flavio Cobolli of Italy also fell to 21-year-old Alexander Blockx.<\/p>\n
Zheng saved a match point in her 1-6, 7-6 (7\/3), 7-5 triumph over Keys, the 2025 Australian Open champion and a US Open finalist back in 2017.<\/p>\n
After coming through the second-set tiebreaker, Zheng appeared to be out of steam in the final set.<\/p>\n
The former world number four had to come through qualifying after a lengthy recovery from elbow surgery saw her ranking plummet.<\/p>\n
Keys raced to a 5-0 lead in the third but Zheng had a last stand in her. She saved match point at 5-1 and just kept rolling, Keys\u2019s increasing frustration showing as she banged her head with her racquet after one lost point.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just told myself keep holding every single point, never give up, stay there. And somehow little by little it just happened,\u201d Zheng said.<\/p>\n
Zheng, currently ranked 121st in the world, will face six-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek for a place in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
Swiatek saved three set points in the second set, dominating both tiebreakers in her tight 7-6 (7\/3), 7-6 (7\/3) win over Czech Maria Bouzkova.<\/p>\n
Belgium\u2019s Blockx shocked Cobolli 6-7 (4\/7), 6-3, 6-0, 6-3, winning 11 straight games from 3-2 down in the second set as he reached the second week of a Grand Slam for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this was one of my craziest experiences so far in my career,\u201d Blockx said after firing 17 aces past Cobolli.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the first set I told myself to stay calm. I wasn\u2019t playing bad. I know deep inside I\u2019m a fighter and I will fight until the last ball and it paid off today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blockx next faces Francisco Cerundolo, who rallied from two sets down to upset ninth-seeded Fritz 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.<\/p>\n
Down 4-3 on serve in the final set, the 24th seed from Argentina fought back from 0-40 down to hold, coming up with a trio of booming serves and a thundering forehand before taking the game with another service winner.<\/p>\n
He then broke Fritz and cruised home.<\/p>\n
Austrian Anastasia Potapova further dented US hopes with her 6-2, 7-5 victory over Anisimova.<\/p>\n
Potapova reached the US Open fourth round for the first time, and will face fifth-seeded French Open champion Mirra Andreeva, who beat Nikola Bartunkova 6-2, 7-6 (7\/5).<\/p>\n
Zverev under the lights<\/p>\n
Former champion Gauff shook off a slow start to beat Spain\u2019s Cristina Bucsa 6-3, 6-4, relying on her defensive skills as she climbed out of a 3-1 hole in the opening set.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a tricky player, so it\u2019s tough to get rhythm,\u201d Gauff said. \u201cHappy with how I fought through even when I wasn\u2019t playing my best.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gauff said she\u2019d seen the US trio go down before her match, but it didn\u2019t affect how she approached her match.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpsets are a thing, but at the end of the day, anybody can lose,\u201d she said. \u201cI go into it with that mindset, and I think, if anything, it makes me have my guard up all the time, which makes me play better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Men\u2019s top seed Alexander Zverev was again due to close out the night session, taking on Chile\u2019s Alejandro Tabilo.<\/p>\n
In two five-set matches, both spilling into the early hours of the morning, the German has already spent nine hours and 26 minutes on court.<\/p>\n
Zverev says he feels fine physically, but he knows he will have to play better if he wants to add a second Grand Slam title to the French Open trophy he captured this year. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK, Sept 6 \u2014 Zheng Qinwen won the last seven games to stun Madison Keys and reach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[243,1696,185,4089,247,463,5054],"class_list":["post-66727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amanda-anisimova","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-amanda-anisimova","tag-coco-gauff","tag-flavio-cobolli","tag-iga-swiatek","tag-us-open","tag-zheng-qinwen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}