Iga Swiatek served at 5-1 in the first set with two set points and never won another game in it. Zheng Qinwen took seven in a row from 0-5 down, sealed the set with a hold to love, and beat the eighth seed 7-5, 6-3 on Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday to reach the US Open quarterfinals.
The turn. Zheng dropped her first two service games despite saving three break points in them, and at 0-5 the match had the shape of a rout. What changed was her error count. She was credited with two unforced errors across the next seven games, and Swiatek, who had held three times without trouble to open, was broken three consecutive times to close the set out. The break that put Zheng ahead 6-5 arrived on a Swiatek double fault. Zheng then held to love, and the set was gone four minutes short of the hour.
The finish. The second set stayed on serve through six games. Before the fourth game Swiatek called for the trainer and took a medical timeout for treatment on her left thigh, then held twice more. From 3-3 Zheng won the last three games, converting her fourth match point on a break of serve when Swiatek pushed a backhand into the net. One hour and 56 minutes.
The numbers. Zheng landed 41 percent of her first serves and won anyway, because she took 83 percent of the points behind the ones that went in, 20 of 24. She finished with 20 winners against 17 unforced errors. Swiatek had 17 winners against 28 errors, and said afterwards that her timing was off, that she was not striking the ball cleanly, and that Zheng never left her the room to play any safer.
The route. Zheng is in the last eight by way of qualifying. She was ranked No. 4 in June 2025, had surgery on her right elbow, missed the rest of that season and the Australian Open, and arrived in New York at No. 121 needing three wins before the main draw started. We flagged her in the qualifying draw before the tournament began. She is the first qualifier to reach the US Open women’s quarterfinals since Emma Raducanu in 2021, and this is the second time in three days she has erased a 0-5 deficit, after doing it in the deciding set against Madison Keys.
What she said. Zheng said she had narrowed everything down to the point in front of her, to the extent that she stopped tracking the match. “I even forgot the score in the first set at 4-5,” she said.
What is next. Zheng plays second seed Elena Rybakina on Wednesday. Rybakina beat Naomi Osaka 6-1, 6-4 in 66 minutes to get there, leads the head-to-head 4-1, and has won both meetings this season, in Doha and Madrid, each in three sets.
