Zheng Qinwen won the last seven games to stun Madison Keys and reach the US Open last 16 in a day of upsets that dented American hopes on Saturday at Flushing Meadows. Fourth-seeded Coco Gauff battled through in straight sets, but Americans were hard hit with ninth-seeded Taylor Fritz and 2025 finalist Amanda Anisimova following Keys out the door. Fifth-seeded French Open finalist Flavio Cobolli of Italy also fell to 21-year-old Alexander Blockx. Zheng saved a match point in her 1-6, 7-6 (7/3), 7-5 triumph over Keys, the 2025 Australian Open champion and a US Open finalist back in 2017.
Zheng Qinwen won the last seven games to stun Madison Keys and reach the US Open last 16 in a day of upsets that dented American hopes on Saturday at Flushing Meadows.
I know deep inside I’m a fighter and I will fight until the last ball and it paid off today. Zheng, currently ranked 121st in the world, will face six-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek for a place in the quarter-finals. I wasn’t playing bad. “Happy with how I fought through even when I wasn’t playing my best.
Keys raced to a 5-0 lead in the third but Zheng had a last stand in her. She saved match point at 5-1 and just kept rolling, Keys’s increasing frustration showing as she banged her head with her racquet after one lost point.
“I just told myself keep holding every single point, never give up, stay there. And somehow little by little it just happened,” Zheng said. “I think this was one of my craziest experiences so far in my career,” Blockx said after firing 17 aces past Cobolli. “After the first set I told myself to stay calm. “She’s a tricky player, so it’s tough to get rhythm,” Gauff said. Gauff said she’d seen the US trio go down before her match, but it didn’t affect how she approached her match.
