"I think it’s mainly in my hands" Zheng Qinwen said after losing to Aryna Sabalenka in the Roland Garros quarterfinals.
Richard Pagliaro | @tennis_now| Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Image source: Antoine Couvercelle-Rolex
Zheng Qinwen Last August, he gained strong self-confidence on Philippe Chatrier and won the Olympic gold medal.
Today, Zheng said that self-sabotage made her shoot in the Roland Garros semifinal.
The world’s number one Aryna Sabalenka Roland Garros stopped the semifinals in Zheng 7-6 (3), 6-3 and avenged last month’s Roma’s loss to the Olympic gold medal champion.
Afterwards, Zheng said that the nerves made her pay the price.
Zheng led 4-2 and scored 30 in Sabalenka’s serve (two breaks scores) when she eliminated her regular backhand shooter as a net. Zheng said these types of errors, along with five double faults, demonstrated a delight.
“I think I’m just nervous because it’s the French open quarterfinals,” Zheng said. “I don’t think it’s OK for anyone I face.
“I was really nervous because I was eager for so much at the French Open and then I thought that would make my performance not the best, maybe not, today I didn’t even have 60%, 70% performance.”
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It was Sabalenka’s 11th Pro semifinal, including her ninth semifinal in the last 10 Grand Slam Championships as she continued to hunt down the teenage Roland Garros champion.
The top seed Sabalenka raised to 7-1 for life against Zheng, and he praised the battle between the eighth seed Chinese.
"She played incredible tennis. She is a great player and I hope she can play a great game," Sabalenka talks about Zheng. "I love this battle. I love that I have to go back to the first set, and the first set is really tight. Either way.
"So I really like it. I’m so glad to win in a row."
Zheng said she felt she lost more games in the 2024 Australian Open finals rematch.
“I think maybe I should be playing more aggressively in the game, and I think in the first set, I made a lot of simple mistakes,” Zheng said. “The chances I gave her were easy. Of course, I think I lost most of them.
“I think it’s mostly in my hands because when I was leading the service game, I’ve already had some double breakdowns in the first set. But yeah, it’s tennis. There’s nothing I can do.”
