NEW YORK — After the longest match in U.S. Open history, and the latest start in U.S. Open history, came the latest finish for a women’s match in U.S. Open history.
When Zheng Qinwen finally put away Donna Vekic, the clock was at 2:15 a.m, this year’s tournament set another record for lateness, in the first year that it has introduced a Late Finishing Match Policy designed to mitigate the impact of late-night tennis on players.
The No. 7 seed triumphed 7-6(2), 4-6, 6-2 in two hours and fifty minutes, in a repeat of the gold medal match at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Zheng and Vekic, the No. 24 seed, thundered the ball back-and-forth into the small hours, in one of the best women’s matches of this year’s U.S. Open.
Zheng and Vekic surpassed the previous record by two minutes. Bianca Andreescu and Maria Sakkari’s three-set match at the 2021 tournament finally finished at 2:13 a.m., with the Greek winning 6-7(2), 7-6(3), 6-3.
“It’s always nice for me to play at the night session,” Zheng said when it was over.
“I’m used to it … It’s my first time playing here in New York til 2 in the morning. That’s unbelievable.”
In Paris, Zheng was almost always on the front foot against Vekic. She used the clay at Roland Garros to her advantage, rearing her heavy forehand up and out of Vekic’s strike zone, and feeling less rushed by the flatter pace of the Croatian’s ball. On the hard courts in New York, Vekic took more initiative, and played the better tennis in the first set. That was until the start of the tiebreak, when she gift-wrapped a couple of points with unforced errors.
Donna Vekic stole the second set by breaking in the ninth game. (Charly Triballeau / Getty Images)
After thirteen games with no breaks, Vekic struck first to go up 2-0, but Zheng broke right back. The match returned to its holding pattern, neither player ceding their serve, until Vekic nicked a break in the ninth game to take the set and force a decider.
By this point, Vekic had been occasionally clutching at her wrist, and her level eased off as the match got later and later. Zheng would break in the first and seventh games of the set, first establishing a lead and then consolidating it at the most important time.
As Vekic tired, the match deteriorated as a contest, but for the first two sets and patches of the third, it was some of the highest-level tennis played all week. Zheng finished with 33 winners to 21 unforced errors; although Vekic finished 34-36, seven of those errors came in the final set, showing the incredible quality of the two that preceded it.
As the match moved closer to the late-finish record for a women’s match, a recently retired tennis player offered a view:
The tennis scheduling situation is a total mess. It looks so amateurish having matches going on at 2,3 4am👎 Sort it out @usopen @AustralianOpen @Wimbledon @rolandgarros @atptour @WTA @ITFTennis
— Andy Murray (@andy_murray) September 2, 2024
Zheng will now play No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka, in a rematch of the 2024 Australian Open final. Sabalenka won that match, 6-3, 6-2.
(Top photo of Zheng Qinwen: Charly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images)
