World No.1 avenges Rome defeat to improve to 7-1 against gold medallist
©Corinne Dubreuil / FFTAryna Sabalenka has underlined her status as the most consistent Grand Slam performer on all surfaces after snapping Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen’s winning streak in Paris for her 11th major semi-final.
The straight-sets ledger delivered the world No.1 her second Roland-Garros quarter-final win in three years and a shot at four-time champion Iga Swiatek next.
Three hard-court majors since 2023 are the high points in Sabalenka’s ascent as a Grand Slam powerhouse, but an often-overlooked statistic is her superior consistency across the four majors.
On Tuesday, she became the first woman to reach nine major semi-finals from 10 appearances since Serena Williams between Wimbledon 2015 and US Open 2018 and only the third woman to do so in the past 30 years after Martina Hingis and Williams.
Her 11th major semi-final reached is the most since the beginning of the 2020 season. Swiatek is the only other player to reach more than five in that period with seven ahead of her clash with Svitolina.
©Corinne Dubreuil / FFTEighth seed Zheng carried fond memories of her last trip to Paris throughout her run to the last eight, having basked in the glow of Olympic gold last August on the same stage.
Ahead of her fourth major showdown with the world No.1, however, she had reiterated the need to draw a line under her 2024 season as she upped her bid for a maiden Slam in 2025.
Zheng was riding a 10-match winning streak on the clay in Paris following her Olympic triumph and was bidding to become the first player to down the world No.1 in three straight clay-court encounters – Swiatek at the Olympics last year, and Sabalenka at Rome and Roland-Garros this year – since Justine Henin beat four straight between 2003 and 2006.
“I think my game plan went quite well, but it's just, you know, I get tight,” Zheng said. “Then I give so many easy mistakes after when I'm leading in the first set… It's just I'm not able today to stick to it, my game plan, from the beginning until the end, because I just think sometimes I give her so many easy unforced errors.”
A first defeat on the clay in Rome to a woman she had handily beaten the previous six times – including the Australian Open 2024 final, and US Open quarter-finals the past two years – was no great cause for alarm in Sabalenka’s camp.
She had just come off her third title of the season in Madrid ahead of three further wins in the Italian capital but was not firing on all engines when she met Zheng in Italy.
“I have to say that last tournament I was pretty exhausted and honestly at the end of the match I was actually glad I lost that match,” Sabalenka said. “I needed a break before Roland-Garros and today I was just more fresh and I was ready to battle, I was ready to fight, I was ready to leave everything I have on court to get this win.”
©Corinne Dubreuil / FFTSabalenka upheld her recent trend towards greater variety, an adjustment she felt was necessary to keep her nose in front of the pack.
While most of the damage was inflicted from the back of the court, she never missed on 10 drop-shot attempts and picked off four clean winners from the ploy. Zheng did not manage a winner off her eight drop-shot attempts.
It was a tactic Sabalenka was sure to keep up her sleeve going into the semifinals.
“I think this is something we've been working over, like, past couple of years,” Sabalenka said.
“I'm not going to go for the drop shot every single time like [Alexander] Bublik did yesterday. I mean, if I feel that it's working, I'm going to go for it.
“But overall, I'm going to play with my power, because this is something where I feel the most comfortable, but you know, when you put the other player on the back foot and ... they're back [behind] the baseline, it's really important to mix it up little bit just so they guess every time.”
ROLAND-GARROS
19 May - 8 June 2025
