Elena Rybakina ended Zheng Qinwen’s spirited US Open run on Wednesday, guaranteeing her rise to world No. 1 as she booked a semi-final showdown with Coco Gauff.<\/p>\n
Rybakina beat Zheng 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 and is assured of ending Aryna Sabalenka’s reign atop the standings — even if the Belarusian wins a third straight title.<\/p>\n
“It’s just a number right now,” Rybakina said. “It’s a different achievement … but mostly you think about the titles in the end of the day.”<\/p>\n
Therefore the 27-year-old Kazakh star will be focused on Gauff, who saved two match points in a 2-6, 7-6 (9\/7), 6-2 victory over Russian 19-year-old Mirra Andreeva, the fifth-ranked reigning French Open champion from Russia.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka will play third-seeded Jessica Pegula in Thursday night’s semi-finals — the first time since 1975 at the US Open that the top four women all made it to the penultimate round.<\/p>\n
Top-seeded Alexander Zverev completed the men’s semi-final lineup, cruising past Botic van de Zandschulp 6-2, 7-5, 6-1.<\/p>\n
Gauff made it by the skin of her teeth, struggling early and saving two match points in the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n
She rallied with some inspiration from Frances Tiafoe’s come-from-behind five-set victory over Alex Michelsen.<\/p>\n
“I just had to reset,” Gauff said. “Honestly, I was thinking about Frances Tiafoe and how he came back. I was just trying to leave the court without regrets.”<\/p>\n
Rybakina, the first Kazakh player to reach number one, is chasing a third Grand Slam title after winning the Australian Open in January — four years after winning Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
“I feel like you will appreciate and think about it even more when you finish your career,” she said of the ranking. “Like now, you still need to keep on going.”<\/p>\n
Reigning Olympic champion Zheng, a former world number four ranked 121 after missing about eight months due to elbow surgery, went through qualifying and won seven matches in New York, including comeback wins over six-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek and former Australian Open winner Madison Keys<\/p>\n
She rocked Rybakina early behind fierce serve and a variety of shots, effectively neutralizing the Kazakh’s power until a slight dip allowed Rybakina to seize control in the second set.<\/p>\n
In a close third Zheng missed a chance to break in the third game. Rybakina broke her in the next and rocketed to victory.<\/p>\n
“I got lot of chances in the third set, but I didn’t took it,” Zheng said. “That was a bit pity for me to lose this match, but obviously I could take positive things from US Open this year.”<\/p>\n
– Zverev rolls through –<\/p>\n
Zverev was largely untroubled against Dutch veteran van de Zandschulp, who upset Carlos Alcaraz in the second round two years ago and beat sixth-seeded Australian Alex de Minaur in the second round last week.<\/p>\n
The reigning French Open champion won the last five games of the opening set to go one set up after just 37 minutes, and saved a set point in the penultimate game of the second before breaking van de Zandschulp to pocket the set.<\/p>\n
He ran away with it in the third to give himself another early night in a tournament that saw him labor into the early hours of the morning in first- and second-round five-setters.<\/p>\n
Zverev will face veteran Karen Khachanov for a place in Sunday’s final.<\/p>\n
Khachanov advanced when Belgian Alexander Blockx retired from their quarter-final with the Russian leading 6-2, 7-5, 3-2.<\/p>\n
“I saw really that he was suffering all over his body,” Khachanov said of 21-year-old Blockx, who had already been on the verge of retiring from his fourth-round win over Francisco Cerundolo with a rib injury.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday he played with one thigh wrapped and had medical timeouts for treatment on one foot and pain in his lower back that hindered him much of the match.<\/p>\n
“I think today my body just gave up,” Blockx said. “I think I finally understand how physical the slams are.”<\/p>\n
bb\/rcw<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elena Rybakina ended Zheng Qinwen’s spirited US Open run on Wednesday, guaranteeing her rise to world No. 1…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1677,2809,243,217,248,7620,185,246,1550,207,1742,1929,707,220,5054],"class_list":["post-70114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-french-open","tag-alex-michelsen","tag-alexander-blockx","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-australian-open","tag-botic-van-de-zandschulp","tag-coco-gauff","tag-elena-rybakina","tag-frances-tiafoe","tag-french-open","tag-karen-khachanov","tag-match-points","tag-mirra-andreeva","tag-roland-garros","tag-zheng-qinwen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70114","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=70114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}