Soon-To-Be World No. 1 Sabalenka Cruises To US Open Semifinals

| by Evita Mueller

Aryna Sabalenka defeated Qinwen Zheng in three sets to reach the 2023 US Open semifinals once again.

Qinwen Zheng did really well to oust last year's finalist, Ons Jabeur, but taking out Sabalenka was always going to be a much trickier thing. The Belarusian has been really strong at this year's US Open, wanting to win a second Grand Slam trophy.

She won the first one earlier this year in Melbourne and narrowly missed out on competing for more earlier this year. You can see the hunger in the way she approaches matches, and this one was no less impressive. The first set went her way 6-1 in only 28 minutes.

The problem for Zheng was one that you could see coming. She's a really aggressive player who likes to attack her opponents, but that's very hard to do against Sabalenka. She plays the same way, and outhitting requires a lot of consistency.

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Zheng didn't have it in the opening set, as she had only two winners and seven unforced errors. Baseline play wasn't a huge problem for her as much as the serve. She hit her serve only 25 % of the time, which gave Sabalenka far too many slow second serves, which were punished easily.

She improved dramatically in the second set, and it was a different story. This time around Sabalenka struggled to create much pressure on the serve of Zheng, allowing the Chinese player to keep the score levelled.

That was until 3-3 in the second set when Sabalenka got a break chance and used it. Zheng missed badly under the pressure of Sabalenka and that was that. It was really a simple win for the Belarussian because she overwhelmed her opponent whenever she really wanted.

The final score was 6-1 6-4 powered by 3 aces and 17 winners.

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