Sabalenka drops just 3 games en route to semis
Written by I Dig SportsNo. 2 Aryna Sabalenka surrendered just three games to her opponent Qinwen Zheng on Tuesday night in reaching the US Open semifinals for a second straight year.
The quarterfinal meeting between Sabalenka and No. 7 Zheng -- a rematch of January's Australian Open final -- was the first matchup between players ranked in the top 10 on the women's side at this year's US Open.
With her 6-1, 6-2 victory, Sabalenka improved to 9-1 in major quarterfinals, the second-best win percentage among women since the Open era began in 1968 (min. 10 matches).
Sabalenka, who came out on top in Melbourne and was last year's runner-up at Flushing Meadows, is trying to become the fifth different woman to win the Australian Open and US Open in the same year since 1988, when the Aussie Open became a hardcourt event.
She would join Steffi Graf (1988, 1989), Monica Seles (1991, 1992), Martina Hingis (1997) and Angelique Kerber (2016).
ESPN Stats & Information contributed to this report.