(September 5, 2026) FLUSHING MEADOWS, NY – Olympic gold medalist and qualifier Zheng Qinwen extended her run at the US Open on Saturday when she defeated No. 22 Madison Keys in the third round. Zheng, from China, who came through the qualifying rounds, saved a match point and was down 5-0 in the final set when she won the next seven games to clinch the victory 1-6, 7-6 (3), 7-5.
In the second round, the American came back from five match points down herself.
“I’m just telling myself to keep holding every single point, never give up, stay there, and somehow, little by little, it just happened,” said the former No. 4, Zheng, after the match. “The hard work pays off.”
Elbow surgery forced the Paris gold medalist off the tour, and her ranking fell to a current No. 121, and she had to go through qualifying just to make the main draw.
Two other highly ranked Americans were sent home along with Keys – No, 8 Taylor Fritz and No. 10 Anisimova.
Fritz let a two-set and a break lead slip, and No. 24 Francisco Cerundulo came back to win 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 in Ashe Stadium.
“I was, you know, lucky to get through the first and the second sets, just because he wasn’t serving great,” said a disappointed Fritz. “He was making some mistakes. So I was able to get breaks and then just kind of fight through, like, service games.
“Like, he had so many opportunities to break me. I was playing very good from the baseline. He was making some mistakes on those points. I played some of those points pretty well. I just needed to serve a bit better.
“He played a very good game to break me to start the — to get the break back in the third. It was kind of just the same thing that had been happening, as I wasn’t serving as well as I normally do.
“On top of that, he’s a very good — like a very, very good returner. I think it made it look even — or feel even worse as well, the fact that I wasn’t really hitting my spots enough on the serve. He was punishing me more than maybe a normal person would.”
“I don’t even know what to say,” Fritz added. “I don’t want to, like — I don’t really want to talk to anybody, see anybody. I kind of just need to, like, get out for a couple days and then just kind of get back to work.
“I don’t know how I let that happen today.”
Anisimova, last year’s US Open finalist, lost to No. 24 Anastasia Potapova, 6-2, 7-5.
“I just feel like I’ve kind of been struggling for a while now, and I feel like I was able to kind of play through it for a bit,” Keys said to media.
“I’m sure everyone could kind of see that I was struggling a little bit, but inside it felt probably even bigger than that.
“Yeah, some weeks are easier than others, and this week is obviously one of the harder ones just because you care so much. Yeah, I’m going to have to make some sort of changes.”
“At the end, I think she started playing better; I started playing poorly. Then I felt like I couldn’t play tennis anymore, and it just was — it just felt like it was a much bigger deal than just playing a tennis match all of a sudden.”
More to follow….
