Zheng Saisai missed an opportunity for a new career best in singles at a Grand Slam tournament as she was narrowly beaten by Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine 5-7, 7-6 (5), 7-5 in the second round of the US Open on Wednesday.

The match lasted three hours and one minute – one of the longest in the history of women’s singles at the Open— as both players visibly battled nerves.

Zheng served for the match leading 7-5, 5-4, but was broken at love with a flurry of errors. She had the match on her racket again in the second-set tiebreaker, serving at 5-4, but lost the next three points to send the match to a third and decisive set.

Bondarenko took a 3-0, two-service break lead in the third set, but then could only hit serves at 70 mph (20 to 30 mph less than her average), and Zheng won four games in a row. Bondarenko then found her serving rhythm, held for 4-4, and broke Zheng to serve for the match at 5-4.

The 30-year-old Ukrainian was then overcome with nerves while serving again but managed to reach match point at 40-30, despite hitting two double faults. After missing a 62 mph first serve, she then incredibly attempted an underhanded serve, which landed wide for her third double fault of the game.

She then missed an easy volley and forehand to lose serve, evening the final set at 5-5. Zheng was unable to capitalize and was broken again before Bondarenko closed out the match, benefitting from three groundstroke errors from Zheng in the final game.

In the first set, Zheng raced to a 5-0 lead but was unable to serve out the set three times. After Bondarenko tied the set at 5-5, Zheng was able to break serve and serve out the set on her fourth try.

"I think at a Grand Slam tournament, everyone is nervous,” Bondarenko said of the many undulations in the match.

Zheng was attempting to reach the third round of singles at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time. Her previous best performance were second-round finishes at the 2014 U.S Open and the Australian Open earlier this year.

China’s two other singles competitors on Wednesday also were defeated – Duan Yingying losing to Naomi Osaka of Japan 6-4, 7-6 (3) and Wang Yafan falling to Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine 7-5, 6-3.

Zhang Shuai and Wang Qiang, the remaining two Chinese entrants in singles, play their second-round matches on Thursday.