Ons Jabeur’s hopes of winning a maiden Grand Slam came to an end on Monday as she suffered a straights sets (6-2, 6-4) loss to China’s Qinwen Zheng in the fourth round of the US Open.
The Tunisian fifth seed battled with illness at Flushing Meadows which needed her to push limits in her first three matches against Camila Osorio, Linda Noskova and Marie Bouzkova.
The 29-year-old was however unable to match Zheng as the Chinese ranked number 23 in the world broke Jabeur’s serve in the third and fifth game of the first set to take a 4-1 lead. Though Jabeur broke back in the next game, Zheng retaliated in the seventh game to serve for the set and win it in 36 minutes.
Jabeur started the second set losing her serve before hitting Zheng back in the next game. Zheng however broke Jabeur in the fifth and seventh game and even though she could not hold serve in the eighth game to see out the match, she was able to do that in the 10th game to win the set in 48 minutes and the entire match in a total of 84 minutes.
It's always a pleasure to have the Minister of Happiness at the #USOpen ❤️???? pic.twitter.com/4lUJbpULXw
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 4, 2023
Zheng will now get to tackle Belarusian number two seed Aryna Sabalenka in the quarter-finals after her straight sets (6-1, 6-3) victory over Russia’s Daria Kasatkina in the last women’s fourth round tie of the day.
