During the 2024 Asian swing, Chinese media took to nicknaming Aryna Sabalenka "the mountain that Zheng Qinwen has yet to overcome," a reference to her 5-0 lead in the pair's head-to-head.
Zheng will get a sixth shot at scaling that peak in the Miami Open quarterfinals after both players wrapped up their last-16 matches in straight sets. No. 9 seed Zheng held off a late comeback attempt by Ashlyn Krueger on Butch Buchholz Court to advance 6-2, 7-6(3) in 1 hour and 29 minutes. Over on Stadium, No. 1 seed Sabalenka was hot on her heels, ending No. 14 seed Danielle Collins' title defense 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour and 18 minutes.
Miami: Scores | Draws | Order of play
Sabalenka's dominant record over Zheng is reflected in the scorelines of their previous encounters as well as the end results. Their closest match was their only meeting on Zheng's home turf -- a 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 barnburner won by Sabalenka in last year's Wuhan final. Otherwise, Sabalenka has not conceded a set to Zheng; indeed, she has only dropped 20 games across their remaining four matches, including their most recent clash at the 2024 WTA Finals Riyadh.
Sabalenka stays perfect against Collins: Zheng isn't the only player on the Hologic WTA Tour who has been unable to solve the Sabalenka problem. Collins has now lost all seven of her meetings with the World No. 1, garnering just three sets in total across the series.
The American kept both sets close, pegging Sabalenka back to 3-3 after going down an early break and then fending off two match points on her own serve in the penultimate game. But Sabalenka never lost control of the contest, slamming 23 winners (including seven aces) to Collins' 17. Even more impressively, she committed a meagre 12 unforced errors, while Collins was undone by her total of 30.
"I would say that at the Australian Open I was serving not very good," said Sabalenka. " So after the Open, we were working a lot on my serve to get back the shot, to get back on track with the serve. I'm super happy with the way I'm serving right now, and I think against Danielle I served really smart. At some moment I was just going as hard as possible, and I was making those faces, but mostly I think it was pretty smart serving from me. Yeah, I'm happy to see my serve back."
Sabalenka advances to her third career Miami quarterfinal. She is yet to go further here, having lost to Ashleigh Barty in 2021 and Sorana Cirstea in 2023.
Zheng repeats the same pattern: Each of Zheng's wins so far in Miami this year has followed a near-identical pattern: a one-sided first-set rout, and a more complicated second set. In the second round, she led Lauren Davis 6-1, 3-1 before pulling through 6-1, 7-5. In the third set, she held off qualifier Taylor Townsend 6-1, 7-6(3).
The 22-year-old was similarly imperious against World No. 40 Krueger for a set-and-a-half, rattling off seven straight games to lead 6-2, 3-0. Her serve was almost impenetrable, while a litany of forehand errors from the American were far from her form of previous rounds. But Krueger gained a foothold by breaking Zheng with a pair of clean return winners in the fifth game of the second set, and from then on the match was narrowly contested.
Indeed, as Krueger began to find her range with her forehand, the 20-year-old began to carve out her own opportunities. At 5-5, she pushed a putative winner that would have given her a 0-30 lead on Zheng's serve just wide. In the ensuing tiebreak, her groundstroke errors returned, with a netted forehand sending Zheng through on her first match point.
After a slow start to 2025 in which she won just one of her first four matches, Zheng has got her season back on track with consecutive quarterfinal showings in Indian Wells and Miami. Next, she will bid to reach her first semifinal since the WTA Finals Riyadh.
