NEW YORK (AP) ― After her latest early Grand Slam exit, Venus Williams was asked what the future holds for her at the U.S. Open.

In one breath, Williams brushed aside the unspoken reference to retirement, saying, “I definitely want to come back for the atmosphere.”

And in the next, she added, “I mean, next year’s Open is so far away right now.”

At 33, slowed the past couple of years by an autoimmune disease that saps energy, and hampered much of this season by a bad back, Williams knows by now that such queries are going to arrive, particularly after results such as her 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (5) loss to 56th-ranked Zheng Jie of China on a wet Wednesday at Flushing Meadows. It is the third year in a row that the two-time champion is out of the U.S. Open after two rounds.

“If I didn’t think I had anything in the tank, I wouldn’t be here,” said Williams, who was ranked No. 1 in 2002 and is currently 60th. “I feel like I do, and that’s why I’m here.”

The American acquitted herself well for stretches, erasing deficits over and over again, until she simply ran out of solutions against Zheng, a former top-15 player and twice a major semifinalist.

“I just kept trying to fight today,” Williams said.

In what she took as an encouraging sign, Williams was out there for 3 hours, 2 minutes, tying for the fifth-longest women’s match since 1970 at the U.S. Open. The third set alone lasted 1 1/2 hours.

“I was like, ‘Wow, this is a marathon,’” Williams said.

Near the finish line, she faltered. On the final two points, Williams missed a volley, then a return. She wound up with 44 unforced errors in all, half on forehands, in part because Zheng kept scrambling along the baseline to get to balls and block them back, making Williams hit extra shots.

During her on-court interview, Zheng addressed the partisan crowd that was raucously pulling for Williams in Louis Armstrong Stadium, saying: “First, I want to say, ‘Sorry, guys.’”