China's Lin Zhu is making her second appearance in the US Open women's singles main draw, four years after her New York debut. Zhu hit her stride this year, even winning her first WTA title in Hua Hin, and earned direct entry into the tournament for the second time.
Now, she's through to Round 3 after beating Mayar Sherif in Round 1 and upsetting three-time US Open finalist and world No. 18 Victoria Azarenka in the second round.
Zhu will play Belinda Bencic in Grandstand on Friday evening—here’s what you need to know about the right-hander before she takes the court for the third round of the 2023 US Open.
She’s reached the fourth round of a major once before.
Zhu, 29, has been playing in Grand Slams since her first Roland Garros in 2015. This is her 17th major, although 2023 marks only her second appearance at the US Open—and her second time past the second round at a Slam. She reached the fourth round on the hard courts at the Australian Open earlier this year, defeating Rebecca Marino, No. 32 seed Jil Teichmann and No. 6 seed Maria Sakkari. Azarenka blocked her path to the quarterfinals, but Zhu’s win on Wednesday tied their head-to-head record at 1-1.
When she debuted in Queens back in 2019, she made it to the second round. Round 2 was her best prior result at a Slam before Melbourne this year.
She has one WTA singles title and one WTA doubles title.
Zhu lifted her first WTA singles trophy earlier this year when she won the Thailand Open in Hua Hin, only dropping one set throughout the tournament. However, she’s had a number of deep runs this season: In addition to her Australian Open performance, she reached the semifinals in Monterrey and Birmingham earlier this year, hitting a career-high ranking of No. 33 in early March.
She also made an appearance in the semifinals at the WTA 250 event in Cleveland, just before arriving in New York.
Zhu claimed her first WTA doubles title in 2019, when she won the Jiangxi Open with partner Wang Xinyu. Zhu and Wang were the runners up at Guadalajara in 2022 and Hua Hin in 2023. She also reached the third round of the women’s doubles draw at Wimbledon this year alongside Wu Fang-Hsien.
The pair is playing together in New York, and made it past their first round in Queens by defeating Katie Boulter and Yulia Putintseva.
Zhu earned her fourth Top 20 win at this US Open.
She defeated forner No. 1 Azarenka with aplomb in Round 2, winning 6-3, 6-3. That win came about a week after she took down world No. 7 and 2022 US Open semifinalist Caroline Garcia at the tune-up in Cleveland—which Zhu also won in straight sets.
The world No. 44 seems to like the big stages, and beating some of the world’s best at majors—but Zhu had a drought between her first Top 20 win and her moment in Melbourne. Before defeating Sakkari, the last time Zhu accomplished that feat was at the 1000-level event in Dubai back in 2019, when she defeated No. 16 Elise Mertens in three sets.
She holds 15 ITF singles titles.
Zhu was grinding away on the ITF World Tennis Tour, the tier below WTA level, as far back as 2010. All of these crowns—except one—were earned on hard courts, her favorite surface.
