Laura Siegemund upsets Qinwen Zheng in Australian Open 2nd round

MELBOURNE, Australia – Distracted by a time penalty and unable to counter Laura Siegemund’s aggressive approach, ranked No. 97, Qinwen Zheng’s second-round loss on Wednesday came a long way from last year’s run to the Australian Open final.

Zheng lost the 2024 decider at Melbourne Park to Aryna Sabalenka and won the Olympic gold medal in Paris and finished runner-up at the WTA Finals in a breakout season.

But her first tournament of the year ended in a 7-6 (3), 6-3 loss at John Cain Arena against 36-year-old Siegemund, who attacked from the first point and put Zheng out of the game.

Siegemund is the third-oldest player to beat a WTA top-five player at the Australian Open in the past 30 years. The only older: Serena Williams, who did it at 39 in 2021 (defeating No. 2 Simona Halep) and at 37 in 2019 (defeating No. 1 Halep).

Zheng needed to change shoes early in the second set, received a time warning on her serve from the chair umpire – she said she couldn’t clearly see the clock – and was concerned about some minor issues which sidelined her ahead of the Australian. Open.

“I feel that today might not be my day. There are many details in the important points. I didn’t make the right choice,” Zheng said.

Of a weak serve that bounced in front of the net, Zheng said the time warning from the umpire “obviously that one really distracted me from the match.”

“This is my fourth year on the tour and it never happens to me.”

Both of last year’s women’s finalists played at the same time on nearby courses.

Sabalenka, the two-time defending champion, extended her run to 16 wins at Melbourne Park by winning the last five matches to beat No. 54th-ranked Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 6-3, 7-5.

The scoreline did not indicate the difficulty of the match, with Bouzas Maneiro taking big flicks on the ball in her Australian Open debut and dictating some of the points against the world no. 1-ranked player. Her serve let her down and Sabalenka was able to ease some pressure on her own serve with five breaks.

No. 7 Jessica Pegula had a 6-4, 6-2 win over Elise Mertens to reach the third round, along with Belinda Bencic and 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva, no. 14 seed who beat Moyuka Uchijima 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8).

Siegemund has never been past the third round in Australia but takes confidence from her big upset. Her only lapse was when she was broken serving for the first set. She recovered to dominate the tiebreaker, while Zheng remained too conservative in her tactics until near the end.

“I knew I just had to play more than my best tennis. I had nothing to lose. I just told myself to swing free,” Siegemund said. Zheng is “a great player. One of the best players right now, but I know I can play well and I wanted to show myself that.”

Siegemund became the first unseeded German woman to defeat a top-five seed at the Australian Open since 2003, when Marlene Weingartner ousted Jennifer Capriati in the opening round.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.