Veteran status won the night on Tuesday at Arthur Ashe.
Four years her senior, with five more years under her belt competing in grand slams, Aryna Sabalenka entered with the upper hand on China’s Qinwen Zheng.
The Belarusian also held a 2-0 record over the 21-year-old in their meetings, both of which ended in straight sets on big stages.
And Sabalenka is at her best on hard courts, with 12 of her 15 titles on the surface.
While it wasn’t Sabalenka’s cleanest match, she remained in total control once again, winning in straight sets, 6-1, 6-2 in just 73 minutes, to punch her ticket to her fourth consecutive U.S. Open semifinal.
“Yeah, very important win. It wasn’t that easy as the score looks, and she’s a great player,” Sabalenka said. “I’m really happy to win this match in two sets, and I’m really happy with the level I played today, so it was [a] great performance.”
It was a rematch of January’s Australian Open final — Zheng’s first grand slam final — that saw Sabalenka win in two sets to defend her title.
In Flushing just a year ago, the two met in the quarterfinals with Sabalenka winning on her way to the finals before losing to Coco Gauff.
Sabalenka will next face Emma Navarro.
“Drinks on me tonight,” Sabalenka joked in an on-court interview when asked how she can win over the crowd when she takes on an American.
Sabalenka said she’s been impressed by Navarro’s play at the Open.
“She’s doing really well. Beautiful to see she’s working hard, playing really great tennis, smart tennis, moving well, hitting pretty heavy shots,” Navarro said at her post-match news conference. “Last two matches we played was really tough, tough matches physically and mentally. Even though I won the last one in two sets, it wasn’t that easy match, and it was very intense match.”
Navarro and Sabalenka faced off in the BNP Paribas Open and at the French Open this year — both in the round of 16 — with each winning once, but both of those were on clay.
Sabalenka was all business on the court from the start Tuesday, not high-fiving fans as she entered and breaking the Paris Olympics gold medalist in her first service game.
Sabalenka won the first three games and later broke Zheng again in the sixth game thanks to four errors — including three in a row — from the Chinese player.
