Laura Siegemund upsets Qinwen Zheng in Australian Open 2nd round - ESPN

MELBOURNE, Australia — Distracted by a time penalty and unable to counteract No. 97-ranked Laura Siegemund's aggressive approach, Qinwen Zheng's loss in the second round Wednesday fell a long way short of last year's run to the Australian Open final.

Zheng lost the 2024 decider at Melbourne Park to Aryna Sabalenka and went on to win the Olympic gold medal in Paris and finish 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 on John Cain Arena against 36-year-old Siegemund, who attacked from the first point and put Zheng off her 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 one older: Serena Williams, who did so at 39 years old in 2021 (defeated No. 2 Simona Halep) and as a 37-year-old in 2019 (defeated No. 1 Halep).

Zheng needed a change of shoes early in the second set, got a time warning on her serve from the chair umpire — she said she couldn't clearly see the clock — and was worried about some minor issues which sidelined her before the Australian Open.

«I feel maybe today is not my day. There's a lot of details in the important points. I didn't do the right choice,» Zheng said.

Of a weak serve that bounced before the net, Zheng said the time warning from the umpire «obviously that one really distracted me from the match.»

«This is my fourth year in the tour, and never happen that to me.»

Both of last year's women's finalists were playing at the same time on nearby courts.

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

The score line didn't