Iga Swiatek walked off Arthur Ashe Stadium in tears on Monday, undone by a stunning comeback from the same player, carrying the momentum of a similar win in the previous round. Coming off a qualifying run through the draw, Qinwen Zheng leveled a 5-0 deficit in the first set against the 2022 champion to win the match 7-5, 6-3 to reach the quarterfinals, doing the same thing she did two days ago against Madison Keys. 

Swiatek was in perfect rhythm from the get-go, breaking early and going up 5-0 after 23 minutes, creating a series of angled groundstrokes that had Zheng chasing shadows. She had two opportunities to close out the set at 5-1 and 5-3 but was unable to convert either, from which point the game went up for grabs

Zheng won seven straight games to seal the opener, while Swiatek became visibly agitated and griped about the tension in her racquet as her level slipped away. Early in the second set, a medical timeout was taken by Swiatek for her leg, after taking a 2-1 lead. She was steady for a while, saving two break points, with the match leveled at 3-3. The 2024 Olympic Gold medalist broke back immediately and sealed the match on the fourth match point. The 23-year-old Chinese player could hardly believe what she had just done for the second match running. 

“I guess coming back from 0-5 on Saturday was not lucky,” she said, referencing her third-round escape against Keys. “I didn’t start the match so well, but little by little I found my rhythm on this center court, because it’s been a long, long time since I’ve played here. I just focused point by point, found my game and in one moment I even forgot the score. It was 1-5 and that shows how focused I was. It wasn’t easy. I haven’t beaten a top-10 player in a while. I just feel really pumped and ready for my next match.”

The former world No. 4 had entered the match with just a 1-7 head-to-head record against Swiatek, her sole win coming in the gold medal match at the 2024 Paris Olympics. After missing last year’s US Open completely with a right elbow injury, Qinwen Zheng is the first female qualifier to reach the quarterfinals of the tournament since Emma Raducanu’s title run in 2021. 

A concerning pattern building for Swiatek

This loss extends a troubling stretch for the Pole on hard courts. The last hard court major she reached was at the US Open itself in 2022, which she managed to win, and after that she has failed to reach any. All the Grand Slams she has won after that have either come on clay or grass. 

This season has been even more barren by her standards, a quarterfinal exit at the Australian Open to Elena Rybakina, a fourth-round finish at the French Open, a third-round exit at Wimbledon, and now this loss in the fourth round in New York, leaving her without a single Grand Slam semifinal appearance in 2026, the first time that has happened to her since 2021.

It also marked her fifth consecutive defeat at a major decided in straight sets, a pattern that suggests something beyond simple bad luck once a match starts slipping away from her.

Other than the majors, she had recently gained momentum after winning the first title of the season in Montreal. Before that title run, she had not won a title on the tour for almost a year and had just reached one semifinal at the Italian Open. After defeating Elena Rybakina in straight sets for the title, it seemed like that the former world No. 1 had broken the curse, and it felt true till the next tournament.

She made the semifinals of the Cincinnati, losing to third seed Jessica Pegula in three sets. She entered the US Open on the back of resurgent results in the North American hard-court swing, which was even on display in the first three rounds, as she did not drop a single set before losing to Zheng in the round of 16.

For Zheng, she moves on to face the winner of a blockbuster clash between second seed Elena Rybakina and 13th seed Naomi Osaka for a semifinal spot. Whatever happens next, the 2024 Australian Open finalist has once again proved her mettle on the highest stage by producing unreal results against top players.