Aryna Sabalenka showed why she\u2019s one of the favorites to win this year\u2019s US Open after producing a dominant performance against Zheng Qinwen on Wednesday to reach the semifinals. <\/p>\n
The world No. 2 breezed past the Chinese 20-year-old, winning 6-1 6-4 inside the Arthur Ashe Stadium. <\/p>\n
Zheng was no match for Sabalenka\u2019s big serve and powerful shots, as the Belarusian comfortably cruised into the US Open\u2019s final four. <\/p>\n
After some early high-profile exits, Sabalenka is the highest seed left in the draw and looks like the player to beat. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think I definitely played great tennis today,\u201d Sabalenka said in her on-court interview. \u201cSuper happy with the performance. I have myself another opportunity to do better in the semis.\u201d <\/p>\n
She will face either Wimbledon champion Mark\u00e9ta Vondrou\u0161ov\u00e1 or American Madison Keys for a place in the final. <\/p>\n
Iga \u015awi\u0105tek\u2019s early exit from the US Open means that, no matter what, Sabalenka will become the world No. 1 for the first time on Monday. <\/p>\n
Her rise to the top of the world rankings comes after a remarkable year in which she\u2019s won three titles, including her first grand slam at the Australian Open. <\/p>\n
She continued that dominant form against Zheng in the quarterfinals, blowing her opponent away in an opening set that lasted just 27 minutes. <\/p>\n
The break between sets allowed Zheng to regroup and she began growing into the match. The youngster more than held her own against Sabalenka as the pair exchanged service games at the start of the second set. <\/p>\n
That was until the seventh game of the set when Sabalenka was able to break Zheng\u2019s resilience to get her nose in front with a vital break of serve. <\/p>\n
Try as she may, Zheng was not able to hit back and the Belarusian served out the match with ease. <\/p>\n
It will be Sabalenka\u2019s third consecutive US Open semifinal as she aims to claim a second grand slam title in 2023. <\/p>\n
Sabalenka \u2013 who is into her fifth consecutive grand slam semifinal \u2013 has now won the first seven major quarterfinals of her career, second on the all-time list behind Chris Evert who, amazingly, won her first 48. <\/p>\n\n
Aryna Sabalenka showed why she\u2019s one of the favorites to win this year\u2019s US Open after producing a dominant performance against Zheng Qinwen on Wednesday to reach the semifinals. The world No. 2 breezed past the Chinese 20-year-old, winning 6-1 6-4 inside the Arthur Ashe Stadium. Zheng was no match for Sabalenka\u2019s big serve and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7942,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}