Zheng Qinwen<\/a> in Wednesday’s quarterfinals. She has been equally sharp through four rounds, dropping only 25 games — the second fewest among the quarterfinalists, behind Aryna Sabalenka.<\/p>\nThat level was particularly striking after Rybakina needed three sets to get past Osaka less than a month ago in Toronto. This time, she hit 29 winners and seven aces while committing just 17 unforced errors — a performance that surprised even her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly didn\u2019t expect it,” she said in her on-court interview.<\/p>\n
“I played really well today. [I was] feeling the ball was really good from my side. A bit lucky in some moments. I caught some lines. … Naomi is a tough opponent. I knew no matter the score I needed to focus on each ball. She\u2019s also an aggressive player. I\u2019m very glad with the way I played today.”<\/p>\n
While Rybakina confessed in her post-match press conference that her and her team’s “main focus … is to win the titles,” she was similarly declarative in her desire to reach the summit.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, I want it. I don\u2019t know anyone who wouldn\u2019t wish this,” she said. “But definitely that\u2019s one of my goals. I try to approach the same way. Try to do everything I can. Fight until the end [of] my next match, and let\u2019s see what\u2019s gonna happen.”<\/p>\n
Rybakina has won four of her five career meetings with Zheng, including two three-set efforts earlier this year. But with the 2024 Olympic gold medalist surging into form in New York behind seven wins and counting, Rybakina knows full well that Zheng is a player of far greater caliber than her current ranking might suggest.<\/p>\n
“She definitely found her form, and I feel like she’s playing now with a lot of confidence after so many wins in a row, so she’s very dangerous,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We played before, so I know that it’s going to be very difficult match. Of course, I will focus on myself, try to serve well. I think today it really helped me a lot. If I can serve the same way next match, it’s going to be great.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elena Rybakina might be closing in on the World No. 1 ranking at the US Open. But before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":["post-887672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}