By BRIAN MAHONEY AP Sports Writer
NEW YORK — Elena Rybakina overpowered Naomi Osaka at the U.S. Open on Monday and is one win away from the No. 1 ranking in women’s tennis.
She just has to beat Zheng Qinwen, which won’t be easy. Even when Zheng goes down – way, way down – she refuses to stay there.
Rybakina advanced to the quarterfinals on Monday with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Osaka in a matchup of power-hitting Grand Slam champions. The second-seeded Rybakina is guaranteed to replace Aryna Sabalenka atop the WTA rankings if she reaches the semifinals in Flushing Meadows.
“Of course I want it, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t wish this, but definitely that’s one of my goals,” Rybakina said. “I try to approach the same way, try to do everything I can, fight until the end my next match and let’s see what’s going to happen.”
Trying to stop her will be Zheng, who made a daring escape from a 5-0 deficit for the second straight match. The 2024 Olympic gold medalist from China beat No. 8 seed Iga Swiatek, 7-5, 6-3, to become the first qualifier to reach the final eight in Flushing Meadows since Emma Raducanu won the title in 2021.
Two days after she was down 5-0 in the third set before winning the final seven games to stun No. 22 Madison Keys, 1-6, 7-6 (3), 7-5, Zheng quickly dropped the first five games against Swiatek, the 2022 U.S. Open champion.
“I guess to come back 0-5 yesterday is not lucky, that’s all I can say,” Zheng said.
Fourth-seeded American Coco Gauff is back in the quarterfinals for the first time since winning the tournament three years ago.
She beat 14th-seeded fellow American Iva Jovic, 6-1, 6-4, on Monday night for her 10th victory in a row and ninth consecutive straight-sets win, the longest such streak her career. She will face fifth-seeded Mirra Andreeva on Wednesday.
Gauff won the U.S. Open in 2023 for her first major title but was eliminated by Emma Navarro in the fourth round the following year and by Osaka in 2025.
Gauff hasn’t dropped a set since her first match at the Cincinnati Open. She won six matches there en route to the title and her first four in New York. She has also reached three major quarterfinals for the first time in her career, becoming, at 22, the youngest American woman to do so in one year since 21-year-old Serena Williams in 2003.
Jovic, who edged No. 17 Alexandra Eala in the previous round, was trying to match her best performance in a Grand Slam tournament (she reached this year’s Australian Open quarterfinals).
Rybakina won the Australian Open this year for her second major title and her No. 2 ranking is her career best. Even if she loses Wednesday, she can still get to No. 1 if neither Sabalenka, Gauff nor Jessica Pegula wins the title.
Rybakina was too good for Osaka, who won two of her four Grand Slam titles at the U.S. Open. The match lasted just 1 hour, 6 minutes, with Rybakina closing it out with an ace. She leads the WTA Tour in that category.
Swiatek couldn’t convert two set points serving at 5-1 and Zheng fought off another when Swiatek served with a 5-3 lead. She said she was so focused on each point that she even forgot the score.
Zheng was a U.S. Open quarterfinalist in 2023 and 2024 – the year she reached the Australian Open final – but after her ranked dropped following elbow surgery she had to go through qualifying this year to reach the main draw. Raducanu’s title five years ago made her the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title in the Open era, which dates to 1968.
Swiatek came in with a 7-1 record against Zheng, with the only loss two years ago in the Olympic semifinals in Paris. Zheng came back from a 4-0 deficit in the second set that day to stop Swiatek’s 25-match winning streak at Roland Garros, where she has won four French Open titles.
Swiatek got treatment on her left thigh in the second set after she held serve for a 2-1 lead. She said the injury didn’t have much impact on the match, and in reality, her problems came much earlier when she let the first set slip away.
“I never judge that I’m going to have a lot of time. That’s why I usually am able to close the set with a pretty straightforward score,” Swiatek said, explaining that she is usually “just pushing and being intense all the time.”
“But today, I wouldn’t say it had anything to do with mentality,” she added. “It was more that I started making mistakes from easy balls and Qinwen stopped doing mistakes. She played the balls better.”
MEN’S RESULTS
Top-seeded Alexander Zverev, who survived a pair of five-set marathons in the first two rounds, had a much easier time on Monday night, defeating No. 21 Luciano Darderi, 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (3).
“To be honest, I don’t know what to do with myself because it’s before midnight. So I might go back to the practice court, I might go out to a bar. I don’t know yet,” joked Zverev, whose first two matches ended after 2 a.m. local time.
Zverev, who won his first career Grand Slam at the French Open in June, was pleased with his play on Monday.
“I thought my level was very consistent,” he said. “He started playing incredibly well in the third set. I barely saw anyone hit the ball as hard as he did consistently for an entire set, so credit to him. He made it very difficult for me, but I’m happy to be in the quarterfinals and happy to be playing this way.”
Zverev next faces Botic van de Zandschulp, who survived his own five-setter when he outlasted Arthur Gea, 3-6, 6-7 (0), 7-6 (7), 7-6 (3), 6-4, in 5 hours, 13 minutes, the fourth-longest match in U.S. Open history.
Gea, a Frenchman who got in the tournament when 2022 runner-up Casper Ruud pulled out with a back injury, had a match point in the third-set tiebreaker in a bid to become the first lucky loser to reach the quarterfinals of a men’s major. A lucky loser is a player who loses in the final round of qualifying but reaches the main draw when another player withdraws.
Also going five sets – though a mere 3 hours, 50 minutes – was Karen Khachanov’s 7-5, 4-6, 6-7 (6), 6-1, 6-4 victory over 14th-seeded American Learner Tien. Tien, from Irvine, was trying to give the host country four men in the U.S. Open quarterfinals for the first time since five made it in 1995. No. 8 Ben Shelton, No. 11 Frances Tiafoe and Laguna Hills’ Alex Michelsen all advanced Sunday, along with defending champion Carlos Alcaraz.
Khachanov will play No. 28 seed Alexander Blockx, who beat No. 24 Francisco Cerundolo, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, to become the first man from Belgium to reach the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
ANDREEVA HELPS INJURED POTAPOVA BEFORE WIN
Andreeva remembers looking up to Anastasia Potapova well before they became rivals on the court.
So when the 24th-seeded Potapova fell and injured her knee late in their fourth-round match on Monday, the fifth-seeded Andreeva put aside the tennis and went to assist.
The French Open champion helped Potapova up so she could get treatment, then finished off a 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 victory that sent her to the quarterfinals in Flushing Meadows for the first time.
“It’s not the perfect end to the match,” Andreeva said.
Andreeva led 5-3 in the final set when Potapova lunged to hit a running forehand and went down holding her left knee. As Potapova sat on the court in pain, the 19-year-old Russian came from the other side of the net and rested her hand on the 25-year-old’s shoulder.
She helped her up, and Potapova was able to limp to her bench, where Andreeva asked if someone could bring her ice. Potapova was treated and eventually able to continue with her knee bandaged, though with limited movement she didn’t win another point and didn’t even attempt to get Andreeva’s final shot.
Potapova appeared to be tearing up as Andreeva came around the net for a long embrace after the final point.
Potapova now represents Austria, but she was born in Russia and still played under that flag when she won the Wimbledon junior championship in 2016.
“For me, Nastya, she was always like a prodigy,” Andreeva said. “She came on tour early. She also had a lot of wins. I also remember we were all watching and cheering for her when she won juniors Wimbledon title. I remember watching that match. For me, she was always, like, a little star that I was kind of always looking at.”
Potapova won their first meeting on tour in 2022 but Andreeva has won the last four. This one prevented Potapova from reaching her first Grand Slam quarterfinal.
“First, she just beat me. So after, I just kind of knew that she’s a tough player to play, but at the same time, she was so nice,” Andreeva said.
“Then since then we would practice together, and just like that, the more you see each other, the more you spend time together, then you just talk about everything, discuss everything. Then just like that, I feel like we have a good connection off the court.”